Greener Grass
by ScarletPoison1987
Summary: Rose and her human Doctor are trying to find their niche and get used to "domestics." However, on holiday, they find that the TARDIS coral is forming a strange sense of humor. Sequel to "Once upon a time there was this meta-crisis." Copyright to the BBC.
1. Chapter 1

There was once a man who traveled the stars. He skipped across time and space in a box full of wonders. The entire universe and everything that happened or will happen was at his fingertips. He could be anywhere at any time. All he had to do was push some buttons, pull some levers, kick a couple things, undo some rubber bands, and maybe bang on some stuff a couple of times…

Which is why, to Rose Tyler, finding this same man (well…almost the same man) sitting in her day room, watching regular ol' television with his stocking feet propped up on the coffee table, eating a bowl of ice cream for breakfast was so strange that she almost had to pinch herself to see if what she was witnessing was real. Sometimes, like now, she just stood off to the side and watched him. Most often than not, she still woke up every morning afraid that he wouldn't be there when she went downstairs. She worried that she had gone mad and that everyone would tell her that the Medusa Cascade never happened. And, in the darkest parts of her mind, she sometimes would wonder if it was really him at all. As odd as it was, he was still part human now…a clone…a copy… And even though she now accepted that he was the Doctor in new body (he likened it to regeneration), there were times where she actively looked for differences. But, to be fair, the first time he regenerated in front of her he became a completely new man with a new face and she was able to overlook that, eventually. This, really, should have been a lot easier to get used to. And it probably would have been if she didn't ever think about the other Doctor – the last of the Time Lords. He was the one (well…his body, at least) that she had traveled with for two years. She tried to think about it the way that her Doctor did. There will always be other versions of the Doctor. There were Doctors that she had never met and there were Doctors that she will never get the chance to meet. There were even Doctors that (from what he had told her) she wouldn't want to meet. The Doctor was constant and forever. Her Doctor, was not. The man that she loved would change, move on, keep running…he might not even give Rose Marion Tyler a second thought after that. He might even change so much that he wouldn't be the same man. He might change so much that he wouldn't even like Rose anymore, let alone be fond of her. Her Doctor would never do that. Her Doctor said that he loved her.

It might have taken her a while to come to this conclusion, but she had now. She kept thinking back to that day that the Time Lord had left them on Bad Wolf Bay and the one thing that really cemented it all in her mind was the way that he had looked at her when he asked, "Does it need saying?" That had been the voice of a stranger talking to her. That had not been her Doctor. The man that had stared back at her with that determined, obstinate, yet pitiful look was not the man that she knew.

This was not the case with the man that now sat on her sofa. Half Time Lord he may be. Same thoughts, same memories as the other one, but this was the man that she remembered (even if he was quite a bit sassier than she remembered. He told her that it not only had something to do with Donna's help in his creation, but also that he had traveled with Donna for quite some time and she did tend to bring out his argumentative side. It reminded Rose of the first face that the Doctor wore when she met him and so she didn't really mind it, except when his sass was directed at her.)

It had been a month since they had been stuck together in this alternate universe. They had already almost been kidnapped by fairies, suffered through family dinners, and the Doctor's first week at Torchwood (where he had fixed just about every piece of alien equipment that Pete hadn't been able to bring home…and scrap about half because it was "too dangerous for humans to have access to." The latter hadn't earned him any brownie points, but Pete and Richard were adamant that the half Time Lord have carte blanche. Rose warned them that this would do absolutely nothing for his already over-inflated ego, but if a whole Dalek fleet can't hold the Doctor back, she doubted anyone could.)

"You're doing it again," he called out from the sofa.

"Sorry," Rose mumbled from the doorway as she finally stepped into the room.

The Doctor patted the seat next to him, still not looking away from the television. Rose made her way over and sat cross legged, facing him. "Can you believe this?" he asked her, pointing to the telly with his spoon.

She glanced at the screen to see a picture of a very surprised Doctor, washed out from a camera flash, leaving the Torchwood facility. Rose could hardly hold back her laughter, even though she pressed her lips together as tight as they would go. "I tried to warn you to leave outta the back," she said.

"I don't understand what the fascination is," he lamented. "You wouldn't think the boyfriend of Pete and Jackie Tyler's long lost daughter would garner this much attention."

"Is that what you are? My boyfriend?" Rose asked, smiling with her tongue poking through her teeth.

"Well," he said, tugging on his ear and looking up at the ceiling, "they've started calling me your 'mystery man.' They really could have come up with a better title."

"Like Doctor? Or John Smith?" she asked. "Anyway, Mum's already told a few reporters that we met when I was away at boarding school. Ya know, when I was missin' for twenty years."

"So I went to boarding school too?" the Doctor asked, scrunching up his face in confusion.

Rose bit her lip and looked down at her yellow socks. "Uh, not really. Um, Mum said that you were a…uh…professor there."

The Doctor's jaw dropped at the same time that he let his spoon fall with a "clink" into his empty bowl. "She told them that I was a professor that was…with a student?"

"She had to come up with somethin'," Rose said, wincing.

"And that's the best she could do?"

"They were questioning the age difference."

He laughed then and raised up his arms to rest his head on them. "Oh, they have no idea."

"Cradle robber," she said, elbowing him in the ribs.

"Yeah," he said, scratching his chin. "Really ought to feel bad about that. But seeing as how I'm technically only a month old, I figure it evens it out a bit."

"C'mon, let's watch something else then. I'm tired of this whole town treating me like a boring Paris Hilton. Ya know, they had almost forgotten about me until you showed up."

"We're quite the scandal," the Doctor said.

"Guess that hasn't changed," she admitted.

"You going to work today?" he asked. Rose had been called in to work every Saturday since she had returned to Torchwood. Most of it had been paperwork or overseeing some things. She was easing her way back into field work. Although, thankfully, it had been quiet lately since the fairies left.

"Nope," she said, twirling her hair around her finger and settling back into the couch.

"We both have the day off?" he asked, excitement creeping into his voice.

"Seems like it."

"Whaddya want to do?"

"Well, if that ice cream hasn't spoiled your appetite, then we could go out and grab something to eat."

"Just be back 'ere this afternoon," Jackie Tyler said from the doorway. "We still need to go over all the details for the trip tomorrow."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow and gave Rose a questioning look while she groaned and threw her head back. "I completely forgot about that!"

"Don't know how you could," her mother said, plopping down in an arm chair and checking things off of a list. "Same time every year."

"Sorry, what…what trip?" the Doctor asked, his eyes darting from Jackie to Rose.

"The first year that Pete and I were together in this universe, we went away to a cabin to reconnect. Then, I 'ad Tony…"

"Thank for sharing that, Mum," Rose said, rolling her eyes.

"Anyway…" Jackie continued, "we made it a family trip after that. Same time every year, we go stay a week at the cabin."

"Sounds like you'll have loads of fun," the Doctor said, flipping through the channels.

"You're comin' too, ya dolt," Jackie said. "Half alien or not, you're part of the family now."

"Oh well, you know, Pete probably needs me to stay behind. There's so much to do at work. I've only been at Torchwood a week; wouldn't want to ask for holiday time yet. Would be…rude," he said, grimacing.

"Nah," Jackie said, waving her hand dismissively. "We already talked 'bout it. Pete wants ya to come. No one will mind. Perks of dating the boss's daughter."

"Ah," the Doctor said, rubbing his jaw and looking at Rose for help (albeit in vain). "Brilliant."

Later, when they were at Rose's favorite café for lunch, the Doctor took a bite of food off of her plate and then whipped out his mobile, scanning through the calendar.

"It's only a week, Doctor," Rose consoled him.

"One hundred and sixty eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes. Six..."

"I get it," she said, cutting him off with a grin.

"Seven days, Rose," he whined. "Seven days with your parents in a cabin at a resort. Jackie mentioned fishing. Do I _look_ like I fish?" he asked her, waving a hand down the length of his navy blue pinstriped suit.

"I'll make Mum happy."

"What if we compromise? We'll go for the weekend. They can go for the week and we'll drive up on Friday?" he was almost begging.

The thought of being alone in the house with the Doctor for five days was tempting, but also made Rose nervous. They hadn't really been given the chance to establish where they were at in terms of…dating. She supposed that they were now. But then again, other than the kiss in the kitchen after surviving the fairies, it had all been pretty common things like hand holding or sitting next to each other. But they always did that before. He had given her a couple pecks on the cheek when they parted ways at work. It seemed like they were always around other people – either her parents or co-workers – so they had constantly been distracted. She wondered if a week at the cabin (with no Torchwood) might even be good for them.

"We can't do that," she said, patting his hand. "It wouldn't be the Tyler family holiday tradition then."

The Doctor sighed. "I must really be fond of you, Rose Tyler," he said as he piled all of their trash on to the tray and went off to the rubbish bin.

"Quite right, too," she hollered after him.

As they were leaving the café, the Doctor's mobile rang. It was strange to Rose to see him answer a phone like a regular person.

"It's Torchwood," he said.

"I don't care what the emergency is," Rose cautioned him. "You're going. Mum's got an itinerary."

He made a disgusted face. "An itin…Hello, you got the Doctor."

Rose started reading the headlines of a newspaper that someone had left on one of the outside tables, until she heard the tone of the Doctor's voice.

"I see. Yes, I understand. We'll be right there," he said, shooting Rose a glance. "Yeah, Richard, we're on our way right now. No need for that. I'll get a cab. Thanks." He hung up the phone and furrowed his brow. "Richard needs us to go to the emergency room," he explained. "There's a man there who has been in a car accident and kept asking the hospital staff to call Doctor John Smith and Rose Tyler from Torchwood. He won't tell any Torchwood operatives why he wants to speak with us. Says it's private."

"So they have no idea what he wants with us?" Rose asked as the Doctor hailed a cab.

"Nope, no clue," he admitted as they slid in the back seat. "But he said that we need to hurry. The man won't be around for much longer."

"We're here to see William Greene," Rose said to the receptionist at the front desk of the emergency room. She gave Rose a room number and pointed them down the hall. The Doctor was ten paces ahead of Rose; she almost had to run to keep up. Outside the room, Richard (her father's second at Torchwood) was waiting.

"He's dying, Doctor. There's nothing that they can do. But I guess he's been asking for you since they brought him here. Do you know a William Greene?" Richard asked him.

The Doctor glanced in the room at the man in the bed and then back to Richard. "Never seen him before. The name doesn't even ring a bell. He still won't say why he's asking for me? I've only been here a month, how does he know me?"

"No idea," Richard admitted. "All he keeps saying is that he wants to speak with you alone – except for Miss Tyler here."

"Alright," the Doctor said, soberly. "In we go then."

"Doctor, are you sure it's alright?" Rose asked him.

"It's a dying man's request, Rose. We should honor it."

The Doctor entered the hospital room with Rose trailing after him. He took a seat in the chair next to the bed. Rose stood behind him, looking over the old man that was hooked to I.V.'s and beeping monitors. His face didn't look the slightest bit familiar to her.

"William," the Doctor said gently. "It's the Doctor and Rose. We're here now."

The old man's eyes fluttered open and he smiled with thin lips. Rose noted that his eyes were almond shaped and the color of amber. Again, she couldn't recognize him from anywhere.

"Doctor," the man said in a hoarse whisper and tried to sit up.

"Don't move," Rose said, kindly. "We can hear you just fine. Rest is what you need."

William chuckled. "Rest won't help. I know where I'm headed. Damn broken stop light."

"You can still pull through," Rose offered.

"Still the optimist, I see," William said to her. "Young lady, I'm not afraid of death. My Sabrina died three years ago. She should be here now. She would have been happy to see you both again."

"William, how do you know us?" The Doctor asked him.

"You saved our lives, Doctor. Don't you remember?" William asked, closing his eyes again. "And your wife over there…that sweet young lady, she saved my marriage."

_Wife?_ Rose thought, shooting the Doctor a surprised look that he returned in her direction.

The Doctor reached out and gently grasped William's hand. "When was this, William?"

"Oh, a long time ago. She would have left me. Sabrina. She was going to leave until Rose made me see it. My life would have been ruined. I would have never had my children. Our daughter, my first born, we named Rose – after you. We never forgot you, either one of you. Then, today, I saw you on the telly, Doctor. Heard you and Rose worked for Torchwood. Couldn't believe it. You still look the same, both of you. You haven't aged. How is that possible?"

"I'm not entirely sure," the Doctor said to him.

William smiled in his weary state. "We knew you were special. Sabrina thought you were angels. I never believed that. 'No, they're something different,' I told her. Then I knew I was dying and I knew that I had to see you again; had to thank you; had to let you know that we were happy."

"We're so glad that you were happy, William," the Doctor said, patting the old man's hand. "But can you remember what year it was when we met?"

"I was so much younger then. Thought I knew it all. Couldn't be bothered, really. Couldn't be bothered with her. I just couldn't see it, Doctor. Just didn't know how daft I was. I changed, though. Changed for Sabrina. Can't wait to see her again…" William started to trail off, his head started to lull to the side against the pillow.

"Doctor…" Rose said, putting her hand over her mouth. Tears started to form in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, William. I'm so sorry," the Doctor said as the monitors started to sound an alarm.

Before Rose could register what was happening, a nurse ushered them out of the room and started offering her condolences to them in the hallway. The Doctor nodded and thanked her. Rose went to sit down in a chair. She felt heartbroken for the man. They couldn't remember him. They hadn't met him yet.

The Doctor came to sit down next to her. "We'll see him again. Are you alright?" he asked her.

"Yeah, I just… I wish I knew him," Rose said, wiping her eyes.

"I think that we will. Probably after we get this TARDIS grown," the Doctor said, reaching out for her hand.

"He called me your wife," Rose said.

"Yeah, heard that," he said simply.

"When do you think we'll meet him, Doctor?"

"Dunno. But I swiped this off of the bedside table," he said, handing her a piece of yellow paper. "Mean anything to you?"

Rose stared at the scratchy writing and she almost gasped. "Uh…yeah, actually." The paper said, "Doctor John Smith. Rose Tyler. Torchwood. Carter."

"What, Rose?" the Doctor asked her. "What does 'Carter' mean?"

"I uh…I think it means Carter Cabins."

The Doctor's back straightened and he inhaled deeply. "Cabins?"

"Yeah. That's where we have our holiday. Carter Cabins."

"Looks like we'll be seeing William Greene again soon," the Doctor said, offering Rose his hand to pull her up out of her chair.


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't understand how we meet William Greene in the past when we're going to Carter Cabins tomorrow," Rose said, quietly. They were both sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for Jackie to come back downstairs to fill them in on the events that would take place in the following week. "The TARDIS is still just a rock. How do we go back in time?"

"You said that it's an annual thing, Rose. It might not be this year that we meet him, actually."

"He did call me your wife," Rose said, remembering.

"See, might not be for a couple more years," the Doctor offered.

"So you think I'll be your wife in a couple years?" she asked, joshing.

"Ah, well, I…" he trailed off as Jackie came in the room and started handing them clipboards.

"Alright, you two, 'ere we are then. There's a list of things that you'll need to remember to pack – sunscreen, bug spray, pillow cases, chargers for your mobiles. And then I 'ave the activities planned for when we make it up there."

A horrified Doctor flipped through the papers on his clipboard. "Blimey, was your mother always this organized?"

Rose looked pointedly at Jackie Tyler. "No, course not. She's taking some class on organization skills. That's all these posh ladies do - gossip, charity events, and take classes."

Jackie smacked Rose playfully on the arm and started to put the kettle on. "It's all 'cos of Shelly Hooper."

"What's a 'Shelly Hooper'?" the Doctor asked, pulling his glasses and pen from an inside pocket of his suit jacket and scratching lines through some of the "activities." He smiled conspiratorially at Rose and raised his index finger to his lips.

"Damn woman told me that I couldn't 'andle the caterin' for her 'Save the Rainforest' thing. Said I couldn't find me own 'ead if it wasn't attached. Well, I'll show her. Been takin' this class for a couple 'o weeks now. When we get back, I'm gonna throw a Global Warmin' pool party benefit. She'll be bloody eatin' her words. And everyone got the vomits from her mango chicken."

The Doctor nodded along and then sighed when Jackie had finished her tangent. "Ought to know better by now than to ask, really," he said to Rose.

"Chop chop!" Jackie said, ushering them both up from the table. "Get on with it. Gotta be packed and ready to go at six in the morning."

"Six a.m.?" he asked, turning around as Jackie pushed him out into the entry way.

"Early risin' makes for a productive day. Rule number one!" she lectured, grabbing his shoulders and spinning him around the other way.

"Hell. I'm in hell. I get cloned and drop myself off in hell," he muttered, going up the stairs.

"You too, missy," Rose's mum said to her.

"Alright, Mum, alright. We'll be done packing in time for dinner," Rose said, following the Doctor.

"Oi! You forgot your checklists!" Jackie yelled up the stairs at them.

After Rose shoved her makeup tote into an already stuffed duffle bag, she made her way to the guest room that the Doctor was staying in. She paused in the hallway, looking into the room and shaking her head. The Doctor had four bags scattered around the room and was standing over one of them, rubbing the back of his neck, and holding an odd mechanism that looked like a giant circuit board with a dial and a screen attached.

"You bringin' all this stuff?" Rose asked him.

"It isn't that much stuff," he argued. "Besides, I need this stuff, Rose. Keeps me busy. And I need to be busy. Have you seen what happens when I'm not busy? It's a disaster; you wouldn't want to. Idle hands and all," he said, coming over to wave his fingers in her face.

"Did ya at least pack any clothes?" she asked, going past him into the room to look at the contents of his bags.

The Doctor gave an exaggerated frown and shrugged. "Some," he admitted, pointing to the smallest suitcase.

Rose took a look inside. "We're staying at a cabin in a forest by a lake, Doctor. Why did you pack all suits and ties?"

He raised his eyebrow and said matter-of-factly, "That's what I wear. I'm the Doctor."

"And the Doctor doesn't wear holiday clothes? You gonna go fishin' and play golf with Dad in pinstriped suits?"

"How about a white and red striped cricket outfit?" he asked, giving her a cocky, open mouthed grin. "Little stalk of celery, right here," he said, pointing to his lapel. "Very sporting? Whaddya think?"

She tried to hide her smile behind an "I am not amused" face, but did very poorly.

"Or I might be persuaded to don a red plaid coat." Then he bit his lip and reconsidered. "Nah, maybe not that one."

"We can swing by a shop on the way there," Rose said, folding one of his ties back up and setting it on the top of the suitcase.

"Rose Tyler, if you think you're gonna get me in cargo shorts, then we're about to have a row," he said.

She doubled over with laughter.

"That's funny?" he asked.

"I'm picturin' you in shorts," she said between breaths.

The Doctor straightened his tie indignantly.

"If you two can manage to come out of the bedroom, then dinner's set," they heard Jackie yell up the stairs.

"Scrap the shorts," the Doctor said, trudging out of the room. "Maybe we should pick up a paper for flat listings."

"So you wanna shack up?" Rose teased him, ruffling his hair from behind.

He paused and looked up at the ceiling in frustration, running his tongue over his teeth. "I just keep walking right into it today."


	3. Chapter 3

Six in the morning came very soon for Rose. She poured a cup of tea into a travel mug and begged Tony to eat all of his oatmeal while the Doctor and her Dad loaded up the old jeep. Jackie was running around frenzied. _Guess ya need to finish your organization course, Mum_. Rose thought to herself and tried not to chuckle out loud.

"C'mon, Tony. If ya don't eat your breakfast then you'll be starvin' when we're driving up there."

"Not hungry," Tony said. Then his blue eyes flicked to the biscuit jar on the counter. "But we can 'agotiate," he said with a broad smile that reminded Rose of a certain half alien.

"Do you even know what that word means?" Rose asked him.

"Course he does," the Doctor piped up from behind them. "Where do you think he learned it from?" He came into the kitchen and sat in the chair next to Tony. "Tell ya what, you finish all that oatmeal and I'll split a biscuit with you."

"Kay," Tony said, digging into the bowl in front of him.

"See, not so bad, is it?" the Doctor asked him, giving Rose that same ear to ear grin.

Jackie came in the room and kissed the Doctor on the cheek, earning her a very befuddled look from him as he wiped her lipstick off of his face. "You'll do great when the two o' ya 'ave kids," she said.

"Mum," Rose said with embarrassment.

"Don't mean right now," Jackie corrected. "Ya gotta get some practice in first," she said, tweaking Rose's nose. After laughing at the Doctor and Rose's gob-smacked expressions, she added, "Like babysittin' Tony." Then she winked at the Doctor, "Or sumthin'."

"What is this," the Doctor asked Rose when Jackie had left the room, "pick on the Doctor week?"

"Let's just be glad she likes you now," Rose said, sighing.

"It kinda makes me miss the slap," he said.

When Tony was done eating and Jackie was finished with her checklist, they all climbed into the jeep and were off. Rose finished her tea and looked over to see Tony falling asleep with his head on the Doctor's shoulder. She smiled at the smirk he gave her.

"Ya know, I've got two," he said.

Rose leaned her head against the Doctor's other shoulder and drifted off.

They reached the cabin resort just in time for lunch and stopped at the little restaurant that they always went to every year. It was exactly as Rose remembered it. As they sat around the same table that they always sat at, she thought back to last time that they were here.

"_Put down those papers and eat sumthin', Sweet'eart," Jackie had said to her._

"_I will, Mum," Rose assured her. "Mickey and Jake just need this one component fixed on the cannon before we can test it out. I just can't figure out why this isn't working yet."_

"_You're staring at it too much, that's why," Pete said, reaching across the table and taking the folder from Rose. "Remember what I said. Take a break from it for now. When you come back to it, then you'll be able to look at it with fresh eyes. It will all still be there when you get back. You'll never figure it out if you're beating it into your skull constantly."_

_Rose sighed and leaned back in her chair. "He'd know what to do. The Doctor. Right now he'd say exactly the right thing."_

"_Well then you wouldn't need this cannon thing," Jackie said. "Eat now, Rosie. Ya wanna see 'im again when you're skin and bones? How'd ya think he'd feel 'bout that?"_

_Rose stood up from the table and quietly walked outside. She was staring up at the night sky when Pete came out to find her._

"_You just can't keep your head out of the stars, can ya?" he asked, giving her a sympathetic smile._

"_It's not just that, Dad. I mean, I do wanna travel again. But, it was more than that. The things that we did together; everything that we saw; it's who I am now. It's like he's a part of me and I can't just… I don't know how to live in a world that doesn't have him in it."_

"_I know, love," Pete said, putting his arm around her._

_They stood there for a while in silence, looking up at the sky, until Rose noticed something odd._

"_Where's Orion's Belt?" she asked._

"_What?" Pete asked, surprised at the change of subjects._

"_Orion's Belt? It should be right there. It's gone. And it isn't because of the different universe because I've seen it before here."_

_Pete squinted up at the stars. "Yeah, we've got Orion's Belt here."_

"_You don't anymore," Rose said, turning in circles and studying the sky._

"_This is ridiculous. We're outside the city, it's a clear night, we should be able to see it."_

"_Dad, it's gone." Rose pulled out a travel sized, high powered telescope from Torchwood. "It isn't just that we can't see it. It isn't even there anymore." She lowered the pocket telescope and handed it to Pete. _

_Before putting it up to his eye, he got out his mobile and brought up an image of the constellations. "Rose," he breathed out, "it isn't just Orion's Belt. There are loads of stars missing."_

"_Where are they going?" she asked._

"_I'm not sure," Pete said as they both shared an apprehensive look._

Instinctively, Rose reached over and grabbed the Doctor's hand underneath the table. Pleasantly surprised, he gave her a soft smile that waned a bit when he took in her somber expression.

"You alright?" he asked her quietly.

"Just thinkin'," she said, and forced the corners of her mouth up some.

"It'll only get you in trouble," he warned.

"Usually does," Rose agreed.

The Doctor pulled their clasped hands up from underneath the table and kissed her fingers. He wasn't looking at her while he did it, he just acted like it was the most normal thing in the world. Rose was a little taken aback. He had never been so affectionate around other people. She looked over to see her mum smiling at them. Rose rolled her eyes, smiled back at Jackie, and took a sip of her drink. Yeah, maybe this week would be good for them.


	4. Chapter 4

Jackie was less pleased with the Doctor, however, when they got to the cabin.

The resort was as lovely as it had been all the other years that they had visited. Enclosed by a forest, it had only dirt roads and little cabins of various sizes. They drove past the lake, the golf course, a playground, a little petrol station that was attached to a little general shop. After stopping at the rental office, Pete retrieved the keys to their cabin and when they walked inside, Rose noted that it was a little nicer than the one that they had rented the previous year. It was all sort of cheeky with wood floors and walls, plaid furnishings in various colors, and knitted pillows and afghans.

"Can't believe you brought that…that thing!" Jackie yelled at him when they were through carrying all the bags into the sitting room.

"It's not a 'thing.' It's a TARDIS. Well, it will be."

"I told you both to leave work at home."

"Right but, Jackie, this isn't work."

"It is for you. I know you, mister. Torchwood is just a little holiday for you. That is your real job," Jackie said, pointing to the tank containing the TARDIS coral.

"She needs constant attention. If I want her to grow properly, she needs stasis monitoring. Her equilibrium needs evaluated every day. The semifluid needs to be kept in a state of chemical stagnation…" he kept on babbling as he followed Rose's mum into the kitchen with a box of grocieries.

Rose sighed and dropped some bags. "She really hates the baby TARDIS doesn't she?" she asked Pete.

"She knows it means that you'll both be gone soon," Pete said, handing Tony a plastic bucket and shovel and sending him outside. "It's not easy for her, you know. She's gotten a taste of what it's like with the two of you living a normal life with us. We know it's a temporary thing, but that doesn't make it any less difficult to let you both go."

"We always come back," Rose reassured him.

"But there might be a time when you don't," he said sadly. "She's certainly experienced enough close calls. Just be understanding."

Rose nodded. She did understand. As much as she wanted her mum to see that they just couldn't not try, she knew what it did to her.

Soon, the Doctor reappeared around the corner and hauled Rose away from earshot. "Rose, there's only…only three…" He kept stammering and bouncing back and forth a little bit, trying to get Rose to catch on to the sentence that he hadn't finished.

"Doctor, what's up with you? Deep breath, alright?"

He frowned in aggravation and inclined his head in the direction of the hallway. Rose took a peek around the corner and then shook her head. _What was his problem?_ Then, she understood. Only three bedrooms; one for her parents, one with a twin bed for Tony, and…one for them…

"Mum!" Rose yelled, walking right past the Doctor, who was nodding at her emphatically.

"What is it now?" Jackie asked, unpacking kitchen supplies.

"You rented a cabin with only three bedrooms."

"Well, I just figu'ered, ya know, it's all fine and good that you two want your own space at home, but ya don't need that 'ere."

"Mum, not the reason that we have separate bedrooms," Rose said to her, quietly.

"Ohhhhh," Jackie said with a smile. "Silly me." Then she walked over to the Doctor and gave him a big hug.

He humored her for a moment and then slowly pushed her away. "What was that for?" he asked.

"Two years, runnin' around with my daughter and you were always a perfect gentleman."

The Doctor smiled almost shyly and tugged on his ear. "Well, wouldn't have been proper, would it?"

Jackie started to scrutinize him. "I mean, that's assumin' that you even could. I dunno what parts ya have and all."

"I…" the Doctor gave an exasperated sigh and a long blink before shoving his hands into his pockets, turning, and walking out of the kitchen without another word.

Rose put her head down on the kitchen counter. _I'm gonna owe him big time for this_, she thought.

Her mum went back to unpacking. "I'll just ring down and have 'em run up a cot."

After helping the Doctor unload all of his busy stuff, Rose told him to take the TARDIS coral into…the room so that her mum didn't have to see it. They took Tony to the lake and then Rose helped her mother cook dinner. The Doctor had been strangely absent since they returned.

_He's probably hiding from Mum_, Rose thought. And, really, she wouldn't blame him. But dinner was ready and he was still nowhere to be found.

"Just start without me, 'kay," Rose told her family as she set off out the front door to look for him.

She found the Doctor wandering in circles down one of the dirt roads, flipping switches on that circuit board that he brought and running his sonic screwdriver over the screen from time to time.

"Mum wants us inside for dinner. Whatcha doing?" she asked him.

"There has to be a reason that William Greene knows us, Rose. There could be some sort of cross time disturbance, a vortex shift, something. I dunno. It could even be as simple as our images rippling back like when you get ghost sightings," he said, still walking around with that circuit board.

"Like what the cybermen did?" Rose asked, feeling apprehensive.

"Nah," he dismissed this. "More like imprints in time. Like a big stain on a picture or a smudge on a window or...right, well, something more…wonky. It's probably not that anyway. This man knew us. Had talked to us. Has to be more than just remembering our faces."

"But I thought you said that we probably don't meet him for a couple more years. Like, when the TARDIS is grown."

"Could be sooner than that. It was this resort, wasn't it?"

"So why do you think it's this time, this year?" Rose asked him, after resigning herself to a spot instead of following his zig-zagging.

"Because I can't fathom a reason that I'd be coming back," he said, teasing and bumping into her shoulder.

"So you aren't coming inside for dinner?"

"Hmm, wot?" he asked, finally looking up. "Ah, uh, no. Gonna see if I can't get a signal. Can't be doing this during the day, can I? Imagine the looks I'd get from the neighbors."

"That doesn't stop you at home," Rose said, smiling at him. But he was already a couple paces out of hearing distance. "Just don't wander too far," she shouted at him as she turned to go inside.

"That's rich coming from you," he called back playfully.

After dinner, the Doctor still wasn't back. Rose called his mobile, but he had left it on the kitchen counter. He had a habit of doing that. Of course, Rose knew it was because he wasn't used to carrying one. Since he hadn't really been gone all that long, she told herself not to start worrying yet.

Her mum and dad were giving Tony a bath and Rose went into the bedroom to unpack some more. She kept glancing over at the TARDIS coral. It seemed brighter than before. The Doctor had rigged its tank and monitoring systems up in a corner of the room and Rose was sure that it hadn't been emitting that much orange light earlier.

"You alright in there?" Rose asked the baby TARDIS, sitting cross legged in front of the tank. "I must sound like a nutter talkin' to a rock, yeah?"

Was it her imagination, or did the coral just get a little brighter?

"I'm sorry," she told it. "I don't know what to check to see if you're okay. The Doctor will back soon, though. And I'll have him take a look at ya."

She looked over at the clock on the bedside table. Where was he?

"You know him," she said to the TARDIS. "He's got some new obsession; a new puzzle to figure out. Kinda wish he'd be a little more social," she admitted. "S'pose you can't teach a nine hundred year old Time Lord new tricks even if he is in a human body now."

She thought back to what her Mum had told him earlier about Torchwood just being a vacation for him.

"Guess I always knew that Torchwood and livin' with my parents was just temporary. Once you're all grown up, he'll be itchin' to get out of here. He already is. That's kinda why I was hoping that he'd do the family thing – the domestic thing – at the cabin at least once. I know I'll probably be back here as much as I can, but I don't reckon that he'll ever come back with me. Mum keeps makin' jokes about kids and stuff, but he's still the Doctor. He's bein' a good sport about it now, but I know that it's just a bit of a lark for him, ya know? Like he's just playin' along. Next year he'll probably just drop me off here and then go off by himself, like he did before. I just hope he realizes that it's different now that he can't regenerate. He could really hurt himself now. Makes me nervous. Hopefully he'll get back and take a break from all this runnin' around stuff so that we can at least have one year with my family. And I'm still talkin' to a chunk of rock. But ya know what's funny, I reckon you're listening," she said, leaning closer to the tank.

"Wonder if he's right," Rose said, finally getting up from the floor. "Maybe we do meet William this time. But the only way that we could go back in time is you, and you're clearly not up for the job, no offense."

Rose opened a suitcase and pulled out some paperwork that she had shoved in the side pocket. There was a notebook in there that had all of her scribbling about time traveling, dimension jumping, theories, patterns, formulas, etc. She figured if he wasn't going to let it go, maybe she could meet him half way.

The door to the bedroom opened. Of course, he hadn't knocked, true to form. "Where'd everyone go?" the Doctor asked. "Step out to track shifting, fragmented time streams and you all just disappear on me?"

"Mum and Dad are gettin' Tony ready for bed," Rose explained.

"Ah," he mused. "Right, it is getting late. Quick thought, how much yelling would your mother do if I were to have Torchwood fax me some information? I think I found some sort of fracture, but I need to modify this a bit," he explained, holding up the circuit board. "Also thinking of taking a drive tomorrow. Need somewhere with WiFi so that I can look up the history of this place."

"You're supposed to go fishin' with Dad tomorrow morning," Rose reminded him.

"Well, that won't take all day, will it? I'll meet up with him later."

"Doctor," Rose sighed. She had wanted to help him, knowing that he wouldn't let this go. But he did need to understand that they were there to have a family holiday, not solve mysteries. "Can't you do all that some other day? We are going to be here for a week."

"I'll get this out of the way, Rose, and then I can concentrate on this whole 'family' thing," he said, turning the circuit board over in his hands and fiddling with it.

"One time; one year, that's all Mum's asking for, Doctor. We're gonna be gone soon – off in space – can't you give me this? Just this once?" Rose was becoming cross now. She wasn't meaning to get upset, but he was so single-minded when it came to this stuff.

"Oh, won't be a tick," he said, dismissing her and leaving the room.

Rose walked back over to the TARDIS coral, which did now seem to be illuminating the entire room. She hardly noticed. "It's too bad you can't help me with him," she said to it as she stroked the glass. "You've known him longer than I have." A few tears started to trickle down her face as a not-so-pleasant thought entered her head. "Am I just a distraction for him?" She asked the piece of coral. "Maybe he's just playing along with me too. He's stranded so he's doing what he thinks is his 'duty' to me. Once he's back up there, though, won't it all go back to running around and gettin' caught up in the adventure? It's not like he's gonna want to be settlin' down or anything. Oh, what am I tellin' you for?" she asked, getting up and throwing on some pajamas. "It's not like you're gonna answer." She did remember to tell the Doctor that the TARDIS coral was giving off a strange amount of color (he said that he'd check on it in a bit, but that it should be typical for it to go through "growth spurts") before she crawled into bed.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Rose woke to find the Doctor sitting in a chair that he had pulled to the corner of the room that housed the TARDIS coral. He had fallen asleep sitting up, that circuit board was in his lap, his head was lulled to one side and resting on the top of the TARDIS tank. He needed a bit more sleep now than he did before he had a human body, and he wasn't used to it. Rose often found that he had nodded off in the middle of working on some mechanism in the workshop. He just kept going and going until he crashed. After a few weeks, she had decided that it was probably going to be a lifelong habit and gave up on trying to convince him to adjust to a regular sleeping schedule. He simply refused to acknowledge that his mind could not overcome these "tiny human annoyances."

She decided to let him sleep for a bit and got out of bed to find her mum. Rose figured that her dad had left already for the lake, but maybe if Tony was still here he could go with them. The three year old could probably convince the Doctor that fishing wouldn't be that bad. Tony could pretty much get the Doctor to do whatever he wanted. He had the half Time Lord completely wrapped around his little finger.

But upon leaving the bedroom, Rose was a bit befuddled when she realized that the cabin looked...different. At first, in her groggy state, she thought that maybe she had gotten the color of the sofa wrong. Maybe it had been green before. However, she soon realized that all the furnishings were different. She spun around to see that the plasma television that had been mounted to the wall was now replaced with an old box television with antennas.

"What the hell?" she said aloud, finally fully awake.

Rose all but ran to the hallway on her bare feet, and found only three doors there… the bedroom that she had just came out of, the bathroom, and Tony's room. Only now, it didn't have a little bed and wasn't littered with toys. It was a bare office room with a desk, a chair, and a bookcase with a few publications stacked on the shelves. Her parents' room was completely missing. The hallway ended in a blank wall.

She felt along the wallpaper for…something (she wasn't sure), but found that there really was absolutely nothing there. It was just gone.

"Mum!" she yelled, running around the unfamiliar cabin. "Dad! Tony!"

Nothing.

After looking out the window in the kitchen and coming to the conclusion that she was still at the same resort, she ran back into the bedroom.

"Doctor!" Rose hollered in panic with just a tinge of relief after finding him still sleeping in the chair in the corner of the bedroom. At least he hadn't left her too.

He jolted awake and was on his feet before she could blink. "What? I'm up." He started to fly around the room, sticking various little tools and devices into a duffle bag. "Has Pete left yet? Am I late? It'd be a pity if I missed fishing," he said, giving her a little wink. Then he took in Rose's expression. "Well, it's not the absolute end of the world. Rose, you look like the Jadoon have taken you to the moon." He laughed. "Funny story about that…"

"They're gone," Rose said.

"Sorry?" he asked.

"Mum, Dad, and Tony."

"Well, they probably nipped down to the lake. C'mon. Get dressed. Allon.."

Rose cut him off, "No, Doctor. That's not what I mean. They're not gone. I think we are."

"Wot?"

"It's the same cabin, but it isn't. It's not the same. They're not here."

He stared at her quizzically. "Not following."

"We've left. I think something has happened. Like what you said before." When Rose realized that she couldn't find a way to explain it (not in her shocked state, anyway), she simply pointed to the door. "Go and see."

He pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "Let's have a look then, shall we?" He asked as he left the room. A moment later, Rose heard a very surprised, "You're kidding me," echoing back through the hallway.

"So you see what I mean?" Rose asked him when she found him in the kitchen, staring out the window.

"Oh yes," he said, turning from the window and nodding in the direction of a calendar hanging on the wall. The date said "June, 1974."

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," Rose said quietly.

"I'm Toto?" the Doctor asked with a horror stricken face. "I'm so not Toto."

"You're right," Rose said. "You're clearly the Scarecrow."

"Mind you, I have a brain. A very good brain. A clever brain."

"Then use it to get us out of here," Rose said. "How'd we even get here in the first place?"

"Dunno," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. He made a hissing noise through his teeth. "Nineteen seventy four, huh?"

"What are we gonna do?" Rose asked him, her eyes wide.

"You are going to get dressed. Then we'll pop outside and get some information from the first person we come across, eh?"

"I suppose," she said, leaving to do as he said.

When they left the cabin, Rose was certain that they were in 1974 as the first person they came across was a tall man with his dark hair cropped into a Ringo mop. He was wearing a button up, dark denim jumper and light wash jean trousers. _Not the most fashionable bloke_, Rose noted. But he was ticking thing off of a list, so he looked important.

"Excuse me," the Doctor said to him, smiling wide. "Mind telling me what's going on?" The Doctor was referring to the bustle of people walking around on the dirt roads.

"You mean the itinerary?" the man asked. "We'll cover that shortly at the first meet and greet."

The Doctor looked pointedly at Rose. "What is it with you people?"

"Now if you'll just take the next hour to get settled in your cabin, then we'll all meet at the center later to introduce ourselves and have a little brunch," the man said. "What's your names? I'll see where you're staying."

"Oh, we found our cabin, thank you," the Doctor told him. "I'm Doctor John Smith…" before the Doctor could introduce Rose, the man cut him off.

"Smith? I don't have a Smith on here," he said, looking at his paper.

"Ah, well, there's a good explanation for that…" the Doctor started to say.

"I'm sure there is. I apologize. If you were able to get on the bus to here, then you have to be on a list somewhere. Bloody up and ups didn't give me updated paperwork."

"Right. No worries. We were actually wondering when the next shuttle back to the city is going to be here," the Doctor said, mouthing "Torchwood" to Rose before turning back to the man.

"Shuttle?" the man asked. "Oh, didn't they tell you? You're here for the week. No contact with anyone. No outside influence. No distractions. That's the way things work here, I'm afraid. But that's one of the reasons why we're so effective. Don't worry. We'll get you on a list here soon and sign you up with a therapist. Ninety eight percent success rate, remember? Says so in the literature. Here, have an extra copy."

The Doctor and Rose were both slack jawed when they realized what this place was. At the top of the papers it said, "Carter Cabins – Marriage Counseling Resort."

"Here," the man said, "I'll just write your names on this for now. Doctor…what was it?"

"Smith," the Doctor said, dazed. "Uh, Doc…Doctor John Smith and this is…" he turned to look at Rose and made an apologetic face as her eyes narrowed and she started shaking her head at him, "my wife, Rose."

"Alright, Doctor and Mrs. Smith, I'll just put you down here for now. I'm Philip, by the way, Philip Meyers. I'll be overseeing things." Philip shook the Doctor's hand. "Ah, no, uh, wedding rings then?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh, no. We've been, uh, separated for a little while. But I just can't shake this one off," the Doctor said, gesturing to Rose. "She just begged and begged to come here and sort it all out. Real nag, she is. Thought I'd give it a go. I mean, she makes great Yorkshire pudding, knows how I like my tea, and she's handy with a tire iron. Hard to find, really. If she's not…" the Doctor tipped his hand in front of his mouth to mime taking a drink.

Rose was glaring daggers at the back of his head. He ignored this.

"Okay," Philip said after an awkward pause. "Well, like I said, ninety eight percent success rate. Everything should be tip top at the end of the week. I'll just let you both get sorted then." And then he shook the Doctor's hand again and walked away.

The Doctor turned to Rose, smiling wide.

"Handy with a tire iron?" she asked him, mimicking his voice. "Why don't you give me one and we'll find out just how handy I am?"

"Don't be cross," he said. "This is good."

"Stranded at a marriage counseling resort in 1974; how is this good?"

"Because now we know where we meet William Greene," he explained, grabbing her hand and pulling her back towards their cabin.

"But how did we get here in the first place?" Rose asked him, following him into the bedroom.

"Notice what's strange about this room?"

"Other than all of your strange things scattered around?" she asked, picking up some sort of pink megaphone with something that looked like a trident sticking out of it.

"No. Well, yes, actually," he said, taking a deep breath. "Everything in this cabin changed. We traveled back in time to 1974, yet this room stayed the same. All of our things are still here. The furniture is the same. Everything - just the same. Why?"

Rose shrugged. "Because the room traveled with us?"

"Correct. And the fact that we traveled in time in the first place…Well…" he looked over at the TARDIS coral.

"But how'd it do that?" Rose asked, crossing her arms.

"Dunno," he admitted and then knelt in front of the tank. "You're in infancy – in stasis. This shouldn't be possible," he said to the TARDIS coral, scanning it with his sonic screwdriver. He began mumbling to himself and after a couple of minutes, Rose was growing impatient.

"So do you know how to get us home?" she asked.

"Working on it," he said with a slight hint of annoyance.

"Think you could work a bit faster? Mum's gonna pop a blood vessel," Rose snapped at him.

"Your mother can…" the Doctor started to say, and then started scanning the coral again.

"What, Doctor? What can my mum do?"

"Wait. Hold on," he said, putting on his glasses.

"Can't you finish a thought?" Rose muttered.

"Shhhh!" the Doctor hissed at her as he touched the side of the tank. "You're upsetting her."

"I'm upsetting the rock?" Rose asked sarcastically.

"Yes. She was spiking in about eight different levels when we started bickering," he explained. Then he turned to her and gave a sly smile. "I don't think she likes mummy and daddy fighting."

"You're joking," she said, sitting down on the bed.

"Nope. Says right here." He held the sonic screwdriver up so that Rose could see it. She wasn't able to see whatever it was that he saw.

"So she can hear us?" Rose asked, kneeling next to him beside the tank.

"Oh yes," the Doctor said. "From what I can tell, she was able to harness her growing power and take this whole room through the time vortex. But why? She set her own growth back a couple of months by doing this. Why would she risk herself to bring us to a marriage counseling retreat?"

Rose gulped. "Uh, I think I know," she admitted, grimacing.

The Doctor raised his eyebrow. "Go on."

"Well you were all distracted, like you get, and runnin' around, like you do, and I was upset that you weren't just playing along with the domestic thing just once before we leave. I was worried that you'd never stop doing that and I'd eventually get left behind. I told her all this last night. I…talked to her," Rose explained.

Beaming with pride, the Doctor turned to the tank. "What a clever girl," he cooed at the TARDIS coral. "Didn't want Mummy to be upset?"

"I'd really like it if you'd stop callin' me that," Rose said, scrunching up her face.

"Looks like we'd better play along," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't think she's gonna take us back until we've done all this to her satisfaction."

"So we're in counseling?" Rose asked, trying to work things out. "Marriage…counseling. This should be…"

"Interesting," the Doctor mused. "Well then, let's get down to the brunch." Then, after taking in Rose's horrified expression, added, "Let's see if we can't get you a mimosa, shall we?"

"I'll take a nice, stiff scotch," she breathed out before forcing a smile at him.

"That's the spirit. Heh, see what I did there? Spirit?"

Rose elbowed him playfully. "Alright then, husband, you ready for this?"

"I'm always ready," he said, jumping up and straightening his tie.


	6. Chapter 6

"Doctor," Rose said to get his attention as she drew him to one side before they entered the huge main wooden building that served as a center to the resort. "Philip said something about a therapist. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that if we actually follow through with this and air all of our dirty laundry, we'll be locked up in the loony bin before we can get back home."

"Right," he said with a deadpan expression.

"So…come out with it," she said. "What's the plan?"

The Doctor sighed heavily. "Plans, itineraries…. This is all so boring, isn't it?"

"I just…" she protested.

"No sense of adventure," he said softly, shaking his head. "Fly by the seat of your pants. Let the wind carry you; like a rolling stone? No?"

Rose gave him a long blink in response.

"Well, of course we can't tell them the truth. I'm a nine hundred year old, time traveling alien in a human body and this is the shop girl that I picked up while running from animated plastic in another dimension. Sounds a bit mad, doesn't it? Although," he paused dramatically and looked up wistfully, "I do wish I could see the therapist's face if we explained all that."

"You did meet me while I was working in a shop. We went on a date and had chips. My mum didn't like you at first. We got married a year ago. No kids. We both work at the family business run by my dad. Will that work?"

He shrugged, "For now. We'll probably have to come up with more complicated things to tell a therapist, but that'll all work for a simple meet and greet."

When they entered the larger cabin, Rose was impressed with how many other couples were there. By her quick estimation, there seemed to be about twenty other pairs, not including the small staff. The Doctor and Rose were handed name tags and urged by a young woman with a silky black bob to go mingle. And mingle they did. It wasn't very long, actually, before Rose was tired of introducing herself, answering the same questions, and asking the same questions.

"Rose!" the Doctor shouted over to her after he ran off to the food table and left her talking to a man who was trying to sell her life insurance. He waved her over excitedly, using both of his arms. "I'd like you to meet Sabrina Greene," the Doctor told her when she came to stand next to him. He had both his arms linked behind his back and was smirking at her, inclining his head in the direction of the woman that he had been speaking to.

Sabrina Greene was a small, timid woman in her early thirties. She had a sweet, round face with dimples and heart-shaped lips. Her eyes were a stormy blue and she mostly kept them downcast. Sabrina stopped fussing with her loose brown curls to shake Rose's hand and then started fidgeting with the pearl buttons on her lavender cardigan.

"It's very nice to meet you," Rose said, smiling genuinely.

"And you," Sabrina said softly. "Your husband tells me that this is your first year."

"You've been here before?" Rose asked her.

"Yeah," she responded. "William and I don't fall into the ninety eight percent yet. But we're working on it. This is our second year. But I think this time will help."

"Second time's the charm," the Doctor said.

Sabrina smiled at him. "I hope so. After what happened last month with all the couples, I don't think we'll be signing up for this again."

"What happened last month?" Rose asked, her smile faltering.

"No one told you? What shuttle were you on? Everyone was talking about it on ours," Sabrina said, lowering her voice and looking around nervously.

"No, we didn't hear anything," the Doctor said. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"Divorced; all of them," Sabrina explained very quietly. "They're trying to keep it very hush hush, you know. It would look really bad if it got out."

"Every couple got divorced within a month? Those aren't very good odds," Rose said.

"That's just what I've heard. It might not be every couple. But it was enough to start rumors."

"What kind of rumors?" the Doctor asked, putting his hands in his suit pockets and putting on that face that he had when he sensed trouble.

"I hate to be a gossip," Sabrina said, sighing. "But, if it's true…It isn't just the divorces. I was told that once they got back home, one man went to prison for murdering his boss, another man ran off and no one has heard from him since, and a woman killed her husband and her three children before committing suicide."

Rose gasped. "That's awful. And it all happened right after they left here?"

"Yeah, that's the story anyway."

"That'll bring down their ninety eight percent success rate if it gets out," the Doctor noted.

Sabrina nodded. "I don't know if it had anything to do with the resort itself. I mean, they are bound to have some people with serious problems show up every now and then. And, they weren't shut down or anything, so the police obviously don't think that it was because they stayed here. But it is still kind of unnerving."

"No kidding," Rose said.

"Sabrina," a man's voice came from their left. "Let's get out of here. I'm already bored to death."

Rose and the Doctor turned to see a tall, broad shouldered man picking through the trays of food. He had a strong, square jaw line and his hair was dark and messy instead of close cropped and gray, but Rose recognized him right off from his eyes. Those almond shaped, amber eyes were exactly the same. The Doctor grinned broadly when he realized who it was.

"William," Sabrina said. "This is Doctor John Smith and his wife Rose. I was just telling them about what happened to the couples last month."

"Uh huh," William grunted, nodding at the Doctor and Rose. "Hope she isn't filling your heads with too much hearsay. You know how women are," he said, elbowing the Doctor's arm. "There's no claim to any of it, Sabrina. And even if there was, a couple of nutters don't mean anything. Anyway, we should go. I do have work to do while we're here, you know. See you both later."

"It's been a pleasure," the Doctor said, shooting a loaded glance in Rose's direction.

"It's been real nice to talk to you," Rose told Sabrina. "We're in Cabin 7H if you ever wanna come 'round, yeah?"

"Thanks," Sabrina said. "We have Cabin 2E."

Then William pulled a reluctant Sabrina away.

"Murders, suicides, disappearances, divorces; sounds like a bad year for Carter Cabins. What does the Missus think about all this?" The Doctor asked Rose when William and Sabrina had left.

"I'm wonderin' if the TARDIS coral didn't bring us here to just talk about our feelings," Rose said.

"Exactly what I was thinking," the Doctor said, giving her an ear to ear smile and a wink.

"I'm a little relieved," she admitted.

"I am too," he said. "And I'm not sure I want to know what that says about us."

Rose started giggling. "We really do need therapy."


	7. Chapter 7

And they were going to get just that. However, the therapist assigned to them was, admittedly, probably not up for the job. This older gentleman with a greasy comb-over was more interested in scraping mustard from his tweed jacket than he was in their therapy session. But, to be fair, the Doctor and Rose had hardly given him anything juicy to go on. The only problems in their "marriage" that they had cited so far were bickering and bringing problems from work home with them.

Dr. Ramsland even answered the phone in the middle of their session, cementing to Rose that they were a very boring fake couple.

She excused herself to the restroom when she needed a break from trying to drag out this three hour long session. When she came out, the Doctor was standing in the hallway getting them both some coffee from a little table outside the room. Rose was just about to walk over to him when she overheard the receptionist on the phone.

"I understand Dr. Nelson but all the other therapists are over-booked as well. We're understaffed after what happened last month. No, I can't move them to Dr. O'Brien. You know he only handles serious cases. He needs more time with the couples that he has. Well, I can try to move some things around…"

After taking the paper cup of coffee from the Doctor, Rose leaned close to him and, in a very quiet voice, said, "So it seems that they have a specific therapist that handles serious cases here. A Dr. O'Brien."

The Doctor smirked. "I'd say murder and suicide is pretty serious. Think he might have been the therapist working with those couples?"

Rose shrugged. "He'd be my best bet."

"Mine too. Pity we weren't put with him."

"Serious cases," Rose said. "We might need to develop some more interesting problems in our marriage."

"Probably a good idea. I think we're putting Dr. Ramsland to sleep in there."

"So you've said that you've been bickering a lot lately," Dr. Ramsland said with a complete lack of interest when they sat back down in the therapy room. "Is it over anything in particular – money or family perhaps?"

"You mean other than the fact that her mum hates me?" the Doctor asked.

"She doesn't hate you," Rose argued.

"She slapped me. Or are you forgetting that? After our first date, she called the police on me too. Said I kidnapped you."

"She's worried about me. It doesn't help that you're obsessed with danger." Rose turned to Dr. Ramsland. "He always wants to go off and do all these life-threatening things. That's his idea of a date."

The Doctor stood up from his chair abruptly. "You used to like doing exciting things. It's fun! You've changed."

"I've changed?" Rose yelled back at him. "You're a completely different man than when I first met you!"

She had to bury her face in her hands and pretend to cry to hide her giggling when she saw the Doctor almost burst out in laughter. He turned away from her, trying to make it look like he was absolutely distraught. "I can't believe that you…"

Rose interrupted him, "And that's another thing. You never shut up. Your mouth is always flappin' – always tellin' me what to do."

He gained his composure and turned back around. "You never listen! Dr. Ramsland, she never does anything that I tell her to do."

"Do you think she should always do what you tell her to?" the confused man asked, scribbling on his clipboard.

"Yeah, he does," Rose answered. "Thinks he's in charge."

"I am in charge!"

"That might work with all your other women, but it won't work with me," Rose said.

"Other women?" Dr. Ramsland asked, sinking back in his chair. Now they had his attention.

"Don't think I don't remember Reinette. Who, I might add, you almost left me for. And Sarah Jane or any of the other ones."

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, making it stand straight up, as he paced around the room. "Sarah Jane was before her, I should point out."

"Oh yeah, I bet there were loads before me," Rose scoffed.

"And what about you?" the Doctor asked, "What about Mickey, or Adam, or Jack. Like I've never had to fight for your attention."

"Not as much as I have even with your mode of transport. You're obsessed with that thing."

"You feel that he pays more attention to his car than you?" Dr. Ramsland asked, writing furiously.

"Yeah, his car," Rose said. "He's like one of those blokes that names it and spends all of his time workin' on it, ya know."

"I see," Dr. Ramsland said glancing back and forth from the Doctor to Rose with wide eyes. "I'm beginning to understand the reason for the separation."

"Oh, that's not even the half of it," Rose said. "He's even tried to distract me and send me off so that he could leave me – twice."

"But you always come back, don't you? When I try to send you off, you don't go but when I tell you to stay put, you leave. Sometimes I think I need a good leash for you," the Doctor said, putting his back to Dr. Ramsland.

"A leash…" Dr. Ramsland said aloud, as if trying to verify what he was hearing.

"You treat me like a child! That's how someone treats a little kid, yeah?" she asked Dr. Ramsland.

"Uh, I think we're going to have to re-evaluate your course of therapy," Dr. Ramsland said. "I believe that your particular issues are going to need more concentration and time. I might have to refer you to a colleague of mine that does more extensive sessions."

The Doctor, with his back still to Dr. Ramsland, grinned broadly at Rose. "If that's what you think is best, Dr. Ramsland."


	8. Chapter 8

"I can't believe you brought up Adam. I had almost forgotten about him," Rose said as they were walking back to their cabin.

The Doctor sniffed. "That idiot? How could I forget him?"

Rose smiled at him with her tongue between her teeth. "Ya know, I think we can find you a leather jacket here somewhere to match that tone."

He shook his head at her, but the corners of his mouth were turned up just a bit. "Well, he was an idiot. You thought so too. Or was it the stylish French doors in his forehead that put you off? You know, I always wondered what became of him. Hopefully he doesn't frequent too many poetry readings."

Rose laughed. "I'm pretty sure we made some good progress today in our session, yeah?"

"Oh yes," the Doctor said, nodding. "I think we're going to make it into the ninety eight percent."

"You know what I don't get," she said, "why all these people come here for marriage counseling anyway? I mean, if you have serious issues, why would you think that a week of therapy at a resort would help? Shouldn't they be seeing a therapist at home, like everyone else?"

The Doctor frowned and shrugged. "Probably. They could be seeing therapists at home as well. Never know, though. Maybe it's more the week away that does them good."

They had started to approach their cabin and Rose could see that there was someone sitting outside on the steps of the front porch. When they got closer, she realized that it was Sabrina.

"Well, that was quick. We must be getting better at this," the Doctor said.

"Hi," Rose said cheerily to Sabrina before taking in her tear-stained face. "Everything alright?" she asked as her smile melted away.

The Doctor glanced from Rose to Sabrina and then back again. He cleared his throat. "Right, well, I'm going to go in a make some tea before I nip down to the shop to buy some things for dinner." Thank goodness that Rose had some money in their room before they were thrown back in time. "Would you like a cup, Mrs. Greene?"

"That would be lovely," the woman said as she stood and managed a small smile. Sabrina Greene waited until the Doctor had gone inside and then turned to Rose. "I'm very sorry if I'm interrupting. I just don't really know anyone else here."

"You're not interrupting anything," Rose told her. "I told ya to stop by whenever you like. Is somethin' wrong?"

"William and I just had our first therapy session and it didn't go very well," she explained.

"Here, sit down," Rose said, motioning to the two chairs on the porch. "You can tell me what happened."

"Thank you," Sabrina said. "William would be so cross with me if he knew that I was telling all of this to a stranger. But…there's something about you." She looked at Rose cautiously, as if trying to figure out what she was.

"I…get that a lot," Rose explained nervously.

Sabrina seemed to shrug it off. "I guess I just thought that since this is our second year here, William would try harder to make more progress in therapy. But he's the same as he was last year. He says that he wants fix things. What he really means, though, is that he wants Dr. O'Brien to fix me."

"Why would you need fixing?" Rose asked her.

"I want him to spend more time at home. I want him to enjoy being with me. I want to have children. I want a family."

"And he doesn't?"

"He says that he does. We both wanted to have children, but now all he thinks about is work."

"Are you in therapy back home too?" Rose asked, wondering if the Doctor was right.

"No," Sabrina admitted. "We should be. But William doesn't want people to find out that we're having trouble. He says that his firm doesn't need the negative gossip and that his boss might think that he's distracted with our problems at home. So we come here and tell everyone that we're on holiday for the week. That's pretty much why everyone is here. They're hiding their problems from someone – parents, children, friends, co-workers."

"I see," Rose said, finally understanding.

"Why did you and your husband come here?" Sabrina asked. Then she quickly clamped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

Rose laughed. "It's fine, Sabrina. We have our issues. Can't seem to agree on anything. You know how it is, yeah?"

Sabrina nodded. "Oh, I do. William and I don't see eye to eye on anything anymore. And ever since we got here, all he does is work. We're supposed to be talking and spending time together and he can't tear himself away from his job."

"Did you have Dr. O'Brien last year?" Rose asked her.

"Yeah, he's really good."

"We just got reassigned to him," Rose said.

"Really?" Sabrina asked, a little shocked. "I wouldn't have thought… I mean, I don't mean to pry, but Dr. O'Brien only handles couples on the brink of divorce. You two seem pretty happy in comparison to everyone else here."

"S'pose you can't judge a book by its cover," Rose said quickly.

"I guess not. But you both will probably be alright by the end of the week. I'm sure you won't be repeaters like some of us."

"You're not the only ones?" Rose asked.

"No, far from it," Sabrina said. "The other couples that Dr. O'Brien is seeing are all repeaters. We were here with all of them last year too."

_Interesting_, Rose thought to herself.

Rose and Sabrina Greene sat out on the porch for hours having tea. Knowing what she did from the first time she met William, Rose wanted to comfort Sabrina with the knowledge that her husband loved her more than the world and that they would have children and a wonderful life; but she couldn't. So she listened. She listened to Sabrina tell her how she and William met. She listened to Sabrina tell her about their wedding. She listened to Sabrina tell her about her hopes and fears for her marriage. And soon, they both realized that it was dark out and getting very late.

"I should go," Sabrina said, suddenly. "William will worry. If he's even noticed that I'm gone."

"You can come back," Rose told her. "Anytime you want. The door's open."

When Sabrina had gone, Rose came inside the cabin to find cold soup sitting on the stove and the Doctor sonicing the TARDIS coral and scribbling things down in a notebook. She sat next to him and noticed that he hadn't even realized that she had came into the room.

After nudging him, she asked, "Is the TARDIS alright?"

"Hmm," he said, distracted. "Oh, yes. She's fine. I think. Well, as far as I can tell. I just can't figure out how she brought us here. It doesn't make any sense. This is impossible. It's beyond impossible. It's…implausible, unthinkable, in-executable, impractical, inconceivable, unfeasible… and loads of other words," he said, waving his hand.

"But she'll get us back alright, yeah?" Rose asked him.

"Maybe. Dunno. She's being very secretive at the moment," he said, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

"Did you eat anything?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He was being very short with her. Rose was a little miffed by it, but thought that maybe he just needed some time to do what he did best.

"Okay," she said, sighing. "Well, I'm going to eat and go to bed."

"Mmmhmm," he said, putting his glasses back on and messing with the settings on his sonic screwdriver.

Rose shrugged and left the room.


	9. Chapter 9

The Doctor paced around the room with his hands clasped behind his back, staring at the TARDIS coral.

How? How did it do this? It had to have locked on to something. Some sort of power or energy source to be able to manipulate this one little room into being able to go through the time vortex. But that would require an enormous amount of energy and they were in a forest in 1974. What could have possibly produced it here? And how, on Earth, would they be able to get back?

He started sonicing the tank again and scribbling down readings in Gallifreyan and English. The coral still seemed to be honed in to some sort of power source but whatever it was, it was very good at cloaking itself. If he could just figure out what it was, then he could probably harness that energy and use it to take them back to their own time.

After slamming his hand into the side of the tank in frustration, he hissed, "Oh, c'mon! I don't want to be stuck here. Your batteries are going to go dead soon and I don't have the technology here to repair you!"

He had hidden that latter part from Rose. He didn't want her to worry. But now, he was beginning to think that getting stuck in 1974 was a definite possibility. He could feel panic and aggravation rising up inside him like a hot wind.

Then, the lights started flickering.

On and off; off and on they went. There was some sort of screeching reverberating around him. The Doctor spun in circles, trying to find the source of the dreadful noise, but there was nothing in there. It was coming from all around him. He was having trouble keeping his balance.

Suddenly, the TARDIS coral started to give off this putrid, yellow glow that pulsed with the noise and lights. The Doctor fell to his knees in front of it and tried to aim his sonic screwdriver at it to find out what was going on. However, the moment that he touched the side of the tank, he felt a shock and was thrown backwards across the floor.

And everything went black. Everything that is, but his hand that had touched the tank. It was glowing with a fiery, otherworldly light.

"Regeneration energy," he softly gasped as he stared at his hand, mesmerized. "No, that's not possible."

The light was gone as quickly as it had come and he was left in complete darkness. There wasn't even any noise. All he could hear was the sound of his own breathing and the beat of his hearts.

_Wait!_ He thought. _Hearts? No, no! I've only got one now!_

But he could feel them. He could definitely feel two hearts beating in his chest. And they were beating wildly out of control. In that moment, he knew he was going to pass out…

When he came to, he was sitting next to the TARDIS tank with wires in his hand. It only took a moment for him to realize that he had ripped them out of the tank and he was now staring at the broken environment that he had created. All those hours and days and nights of work…gone. It was gone. He had killed it.

The Doctor dropped the wires and pushed himself along the floor away from the tank. He had trapped them there. They were stuck now. There was nothing that he could do.

_Why did I do that?_ He thought. _How could I have done that?_

Then, he remembered the lights, the screeching, his hand glowing, two hearts beating… He felt his chest. Only one heart; there was only one heart.

His thoughts swam from regeneration to the Valeyard to so many other dark places.

"I'm going mad," he whispered to the empty room.


	10. Chapter 10

**_Just wanted to write a quick "thank you" to everyone who has posted a review. I'm so glad that you all like it! I'm trying to update as much as possible - if only I didn't have to work and could just write all day... This story is a bit darker than my other one and the "big bad" will be a bit scarier - but it is just as much fun to write! I was going to only write one story and then hopefully I'd be out of my writer's block for my own book, but I just can't get this one out of my head. But thank you all for your encouragement! It is so appreciated!_**

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Rose jolted awake. She had fallen asleep on the sofa watching television and was now staring at an "Off Air" screen. Shaking the haze from her mind, she tried to remember why she woke up since she was clearly still exhausted.

And then she remembered. A voice – one that was all too familiar. A voice of a man who was not in the room because it wasn't really _his_ voice.

She got up from the couch and started to walk. She didn't know where she was going until she left the cabin. All Rose knew was that she needed to follow the voice.

_Rose._

It was just like last time. She could hear him, across the dimensions, saying her name. She had to follow.

_Rose._

Her socks were caked in dirt and she was still in her pajamas, but she didn't even notice. The only thing that registered was the voice that was growing louder and more insistent as she walked along the dirt road and out into the forest.

_**Rose.**_

Once she had wandered out far enough that all she could see were trees in every direction, Rose started to realize what was going on and she began to panic. She was lost.

And that was when she heard it. Not the voice, but the engines. That unmistakable sound; and there was only one thing that made that noise. She took off running through the forest in the direction of the sound.

Just when her legs began to grow tired and her feet were raw from running across rocks and broken twigs, she heard it again. This time it was closer. She was almost there. It was just beyond a row of trees up ahead.

Rose skidded to a halt when she saw it. The TARDIS was right there in front of her, sitting between two massive trees. She had never wanted to run towards something and run away from it at the same time so badly in her life. Now, she stood in the forest, about twenty feet away from it, frozen.

Then she saw _him_.

_**Rose.**_

His form stepped through the TARDIS. Not out of the door; through it as if the police box dematerialized around him. And then he was standing in front of her, alone in the forest, his long brown coat blowing in a breeze that she couldn't feel.

The Doctor, the Time Lord, was calling her name.

"What are you doin' here?" she asked him, finally finding her voice and taking determined steps forward. "Why now?"

His deep brown eyes found hers and he swallowed. "I've made a mistake," he said thickly but matter-of-factly. "I should have said it."

Rose glared at him through the tears that were building in her eyes. "How are you here?"

"I'm not," the Time Lord Doctor said. "Again, this is just an image." He took a deep breath and shoved his hands in his pockets. "My TARDIS was able to lock on to the coral that I gave you. Why are you in a forest?" he asked, looking around.

"We're stuck at a resort in 1974," she explained before she caught herself. Why was she telling him that?

"1974?" he asked. "What?"

"Long story," she said, dismissing it. "And I should get back. The Doctor's gonna wonder where I am."

She noticed the pain in his eyes and the way that his jaw tensed when she said that.

"Rose, wait."

"Why?" she demanded.

"I found a way…" he looked away from her, cleared his throat, and then met her eyes again. "I found a way for you to come back…if you want."

"How?" she asked on instinct.

He gave her a small smile. "We'd have to use a dimension cannon and the TARDIS coral, but it's possible."

Rose found that she had nothing to say to that, so she simply stood there, looking at him blankly.

"Are you happy?" he asked.

"Yes," she said curtly. "Yes, Doctor, I am."

He nodded and looked away.

"Are you?" she asked him softly.

He gave her a manic grin and then started to fade. "I have to go. I'll find you again, Rose Tyler."

"I don't think you should," she said. It was her turn to look away. She didn't want to see his face.

"You might change your mind," she heard him say as the sound of the TARDIS echoed around her.

And then he was gone and she was left standing in the middle of the forest. She was in the middle of the forest with no clue as to how she was going to find her way back.

"At least it isn't Norway," she muttered as she picked a likely direction and started trudging her way through the trees.


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor turned and finally looked at the clock on the bedside table. He had been sitting on the bed for most of the night now and had just now noticed that the sun was starting to come up. Nothing else had happened. The TARDIS coral was still and calm in the broken tank and he wasn't hearing strange noises.

_It wasn't real,_ he told himself. _Something made me hallucinate. I'm not going mad_.

But in the back of his mind, he started to wonder if having a Time Lord brain in a human body had any side effects – like insanity…

_No_, he thought, firmly. _Something is wrong, yes – but it has nothing to do with my mind._

He stood up and ran his sonic over the tank. The TARDIS coral was hanging on by a thread, but it was still viable. They just needed to get out of here – and soon.

After getting a load of his disheveled appearance, he opted to sneak into the bathroom for a shower before Rose was awake. It helped clear his mind and when he put on his old blue suit and red trainers, he felt much more like himself.

"I'm the Doctor," he muttered, sticking his sonic screwdriver into his inside jacket pocket. "I'm talking to myself now. But I'm still the Doctor."

He left to wake up Rose. She must have slept on the sofa and he needed her help to find the energy source that pulled them here. If it happened to be some sort of rift, then he knew that he could use it to get them home before the TARDIS coral died off completely.

But she wasn't on the sofa. She wasn't in the kitchen. And she wasn't on the front porch. Where the devil had she gotten to?

The Doctor took off running out onto the dirt road. He ran his hand through his hair and grimaced, trying to figure out where she would have went.

_The shop, maybe. Or she could have went to Sabrina Greene's cabin… but this early in the morning? What cabin was that again?_

After deciding that he could think much better inside the cabin, he almost tripped on Rose's shoes that were just inside the door.

_Why wouldn't she take her shoes?_ He wondered. _Where could she have gone without the only pair of shoes that she had with her?_

He glanced around the cabin and saw her purse sitting on the counter.

"There's one rule – just one little, tiny, insignificant rule," he muttered, dashing out the door and taking off in no real general direction in particular.

A man in his forties with a blonde goatee and shoulder length hair stopped him as the Doctor was making his way towards the main building.

"Lose something, mate?" the blond man asked him.

"Yes," the Doctor said, relieved to find someone awake this early. "My…wife. Have you seen a barefoot, penniless blonde wandering around out here?"

The man raised his eyebrows. "Uh, no. Do you think she's alright?"

"Oh, I'm sure she's fine," the Doctor lied. "I'm Doctor John Smith. The girl's name is Rose. She wasn't in the cabin this morning and her shoes and purse are still there. I just can't figure out where she went."

"I'm August Harrison," the man said, shaking the Doctor's hand. "Let's see if we can find Philip. He's supposed to be in charge here. John. John, are you okay?"

"Uh, sorry," the Doctor stammered. He hadn't been paying attention. "Yep. Right as rain. Tell ya what, call me the Doctor. All my friends do. Only strangers call me John and you're helping me find my wife who wandered off without her shoes at 5:30 in the morning. I think that makes us friends."

"Your friends call you 'the Doctor,' really?" August asked skeptically.

"Yup."

"What does your wife call you?"

"Doctor."

August nodded. "I've heard stranger pet names. Alright…Doctor, Philip likes to go for a run by the lake in the mornings. I bet that's where we'll find him."

"Then allons-y, August. Hmmm, not quite the same – but close."

As luck would have it, they did find Philip by the lake.

"Doctor…Smith, wasn't it?" Philip said, stopping his jog and catching his breath. "And August. You're both out here early."

"My wife is missing," the Doctor said. _Boy, that just rolled off the tongue that time, didn't it?_

"Missing? What do you mean?" Philip asked, lighting a cigarette.

"She's not in the cabin and I can't find her anywhere."

"You don't think that she…ran off?" August asked them both.

"Don't know where she'd go without her shoes or purse," the Doctor said.

"Where would she have gone to? There's no where within walking distance," Philip said. "No, Doctor Smith, she has to be here somewhere. We'll find her."

"Why don't I go get my wife? She's awake and we'll just cover all the ground we can," August offered.

"Yes. Good idea," Philip said. He waited until August had gone inside his cabin before turning to the Doctor. "I didn't want to say anything in front of August and I don't want to alarm you, but we potentially have a big problem."

"Why?" the Doctor asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest and raising his chin.

"She's not the only person who has gone missing," Philip admitted. "Dr. O'Brien and I couldn't find some of the staff last night."

"And you haven't called the police?"

"I tried. They said that if we can't find them by tonight then they'll send someone out," Philip shook his head. "After what happened last month – and don't think I don't know that the entire resort is talking about it – I don't know what's going on around here anymore, Doctor Smith."

August returned with a very glamorous (for six a.m.) dark haired, olive skinned woman. She was tall and sleek with high cheekbones and a vacant expression.

"Doctor, this is my wife, Emily."

"We'll find her, love. I'm sure she hasn't gone far. Maybe she just went for a walk," Emily said and then turned to her husband. "Oh, bugger. I haven't had time to brush my teeth. Do you have a mint, dear?"

After August handed his wife a little tin box, they all split up to look for Rose.

If the Doctor hadn't been worried before, he definitely was now.


	12. Chapter 12

Rose Tyler had been in the forest the entire night. Her feet were raw underneath her worn socks. The hem of her pajama pants was now torn and dirty. She had tried not to weep like a child, but had allowed herself to quietly shed a few tears in light of the situation.

When she made it back to the cabin, she felt such a sense of relief that she almost broke down on the front porch. But she forced herself to at least make it inside before losing it all together.

The door to the bedroom was closed and Rose was grateful that the Doctor was probably still asleep.

_Thank goodness he doesn't know what happened._ She thought and went into the bathroom to shower and clean up before he saw the state that she was in.

But the Doctor wasn't in the bedroom. Rose realized that he had gone looking for her so she set off through the resort to find him. However, she didn't get very far before she ran into a tall, shaggy, blonde man with a goatee walking on the road towards the shop.

When the blonde man saw her, he started jogging in her direction. "Are you Rose?" he asked her frantically.

"Yeah," she said tentatively.

"Your husband has been worried sick looking for you. I'm so glad you're here. I'm August Harrison," he said, offering her his hand.

"Where is my…husband?" she asked, looking around.

"He set off in that direction. Why don't you go back to your cabin and I'll find him and send him there? That way there isn't any more confusion."

"Yeah, that's probably for the best," Rose admitted. "Thanks."

The man smiled and nodded at her. "I know I'd be a mess if it were my wife. Where'd you get to anyhow?"

"Oh," Rose stammered. "I sleep walk sometimes."

"Well then maybe you ought to keep your cabin door locked," August told her. "Could get lost out here."

"Yeah, that's a good idea," she said, starting to head back to the cabin.

_Nice man_, she thought when she went inside_. Could lay off the peppermints, though._

She almost couldn't believe what the Doctor (Well, the Time Lord Doctor) had told her. She could go back? Not that she wanted to, she reminded herself. Not now, anyway. Why would he come back now? It didn't make any sense. He had his chance. He left her – again. It wasn't fair to her for him to do this. She couldn't help but be angry about it.

Rose decided that she would have to talk to her Doctor about this. He wouldn't like it. But she had to tell him, didn't she?

And she couldn't believe that the TARDIS coral and the dimension cannon would work anymore. That was hard to grasp. But, then again, she only knew about a teeny tiny fraction of what the Doctor did. To double check everything, she pulled out the notebook she had on the dimension cannon.

"Made a mistake," she muttered to herself as she flipped through the pages. "Bloody right you did, ya stupid, stubborn alien."

That was when the door to the cabin burst open and her Doctor came sprinting in.

"You were in the forest all night?" he gasped, out of breath.

"Wait 'til you hear what happened. You won't believe it," she told him. But he wasn't listening anymore. He had pulled out his sonic screwdriver and was running it over her. "Doctor," she said, gently pushing him away. "I need to tell you something."

"What?" he snapped. She could tell that he was agitated. Well, this was going to go swimmingly.

"I went out into the forest because I heard something," she started to tell him.

"And you didn't think to come get me? Why would you go wandering out there without your shoes?" he asked, pacing around the sitting room. "People are disappearing, you know."

"I heard a voice – _his_ voice. Like before when you…he…you…Like on Bad Wolf Bay, the first time," she explained. He stopped pacing and stood in front of her with a completely impassive expression. "I got up and just started walking towards it. It was like I couldn't help it," she explained. "And then I got out into the forest and heard the TARDIS."

"That's insane," he said without emotion.

"Is it?" she asked him. "Because I saw the TARDIS…I saw him…I talked to him."

He let out a long breath through his nose and narrowed his eyes at her. "Rose, he's not coming back. Even if he wanted to, the dimensions are sealed – permanently."

"We've thought that before," she reminded him.

"Yes, but, that was when there were other factors messing with the walls of the dimensions and I don't think that I, or he, would be that cavalier about it happening again. It would mean very bad things. What did he say to you?"

"He told me that he found a way to use the dimension cannon and the TARDIS coral for me to come back."

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm sorry but that's just not possible. As brilliant as the dimension cannon was, it can't do that unless the universe is on the brink of collapse. There has to be holes or gaps to build a bridge through. Think of it like…" And then he trailed off as his eyes fell to the notebook that Rose had tossed onto the sofa. It was open to the blueprints of the dimension cannon. Rose noticed his posture suddenly become very rigid. "And what was your response to all this?" he asked, carefully, not meeting her eyes.

"Doctor, that isn't what it looks like. I told him I was happy here. I just thought what you did – that it wasn't possible."

"I could be wrong," he said simply, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Wouldn't be the first time. Though, it is rare. Maybe you can go back." Then he turned on his heel and made to leave the room.

"Would you just listen to me?" Rose shouted at him. He didn't stop. "We have a therapy session with Dr. O'Brien soon."

He turned back and scrunched up his face in confusion. "You want to go to our fake therapy session?"

"We get thrown back in time and all this weird stuff is happenin'…you said that people disappeared. I think it might all be connected. What if something is going on with this dimension?"

"Right. Fine. We'll go," he said before going into the bedroom and slamming the door.


	13. Chapter 13

And so the Doctor and Rose sat in complete silence across from Dr. O'Brien in a brightly lit, comfortable, non-threatening room. Despite the care and consideration that went into the calming décor and soothing blues and greens that adorned the office, the air was pushing down on Rose with a heavy, angry weight. She went back and forth from awkwardly playing with the zipper on her pink hooded jumper to nervously biting her nails.

Dr. O'Brien looked like he would have been a handsome man if he had gotten a good night's rest and shaved his bushy ginger beard that seemed out of place against his sweater vest. Rose noticed that even he seemed out of sorts this morning.

"Is there a reason that you two are so quiet?" Dr. O'Brien asked them.

Neither of them responded. Rose was still chewing her nails down to the bits and the Doctor was sitting stiffly, looking out the window.

"So I hear from Philip that you left your cabin last night and went off into the forest," Dr. O'Brien said to Rose. "Was that because you wanted away from Doctor Smith?"

"What?" Rose asked. "No, no. It wasn't like that. I just…sleepwalk."

"You know sleepwalking is a sign of stress. Is there a lot of stress in your marriage? Do you think that you subconsciously want to leave?"

"No," Rose said, confused. "I don't wanna leave."

Was it her imagination or did the Doctor scoff softly at that?

"Doctor Smith, do you think your wife wants to leave?"

The Doctor turned his head and raised his eyebrow. "I don't think it matters if I think she does or not. Either she will or she won't."

"That's very cryptic," Dr. O'Brien observed. "Doesn't it matter to you what she wants to do?"

"What kind of therapy is this?" the Doctor asked, leaning forwards towards Dr. O'Brien and crossing his arms.

"Just answer the question, Doctor Smith."

"Is this a counseling session or a court room?"

"I'm just trying to gauge how important your wife's feelings are to you," Dr. O'Brien explained, scribbling on his clipboard.

The Doctor sat back and stared quizzically at the therapist.

"Does this have something to do with the other women that were mentioned in the session with Dr. Ramsland? How important are their feelings to you? Would you say that they matter more than your wife's?"

At that, the Doctor cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. "You aren't a very good therapist, are you?"

"Doctor Smith, I'm simply asking questions."

"Yes. Yes you are. But you're asking the wrong ones."

"And what should I be asking?"

"Helpful ones, would be a start."

"If you won't answer my questions, Doctor Smith, then I don't know how much I can help you," Dr. O'Brien said, getting up from his chair and setting the clipboard down on his desk.

"I don't think you've been much help to anyone," the Doctor observed.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Dr. O'Brien asked, raising his voice.

"I think you know."

"Leave my office, Doctor Smith. You can return when you want to make some progress," Dr. O'Brien said crossly, pointing towards the door.

"Is that what you told the couples that you had last month?" the Doctor asked as he grabbed Rose's hand and started to lead her out of the room.

Rose turned to see Dr. O'Brien's face turn as red as his beard. "Out!" he shouted as the Doctor shut the door behind them.

"What was all that about?" Rose asked the Doctor during their walk back to their cabin. "I thought we were investigating him. How are we s'posed to do that if we're thrown out?"

"I think I gathered all I needed to. Actually wasn't expecting him to be that forthcoming," the Doctor said. He didn't say anything else the rest of the way back and so neither did Rose. She was starting to worry that more was going on than just what she had told him about the Time Lord Doctor. In fact, as soon as they crossed the threshold, the Doctor silently made tea and then shut himself back in the bedroom for the remainder of the day.


	14. Chapter 14

The Doctor felt like he was losing his mind. Oh, he did a brilliant job of holding himself together when Rose was around. But, then again, he didn't have much of a choice, did he? He just couldn't let her find out that he had, not only ruined the tank for the TARDIS, but also that he didn't seem to be able to focus on anything. Anytime he tried to talk to her, mess with his sonic screwdriver, or take a look at the TARDIS coral, his thoughts were drowned out by strange things. He heard Davros shouting out orders during the Time War; heard his own people screaming. Things the Master had said to him came thundering into his mind like he was having post traumatic stress disorder flashbacks.

He had locked himself in the bedroom to keep away from her. She couldn't see him like this.

After dozing off in a chair by the TARDIS coral for a little while, he shot awake with a thought.

_It is all connected_, he thought. Jumping back in time, the disappearances of the staff, his mental breakdown, the Time Lord Doctor, Dr. O'Brien… it just had to be all connected. But how?

_C'mon_, he told himself. _I am, in no uncertain terms, a genius. I should be able to piece all of this together._

_**Exterminate!**_

He pushed that out of his mind. _It's not real_, he thought.

The Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to focus. Then, he heard Donna's voice.

_Reconfigure the algorithms, Spaceman! It's not that hard. Refasten the current bolts. Get some readings on the quantum molecular structure. Make sure the nucleus of the molecules are positively charged. Manage the electric displacement field…This wire here…Sonic the fission-producing neutrons…_

_**Wait!**_ Something screamed in the back of his mind. _**No! Stop!**_

He dropped the sonic screwdriver and shoved his glasses from his face. Had he really almost done that?

"You've got to be kidding?" he said softly, in shock.

The Doctor had not been repairing the TARDIS tank. He had just been blindly following the voice in his head – because it had been a voice that he trusted -Donna's voice. But he doubted that Donna would have wanted him to turn the TARDIS coral and tank into a nuclear bomb.

Dragging his hand down over his face, he let out a shaky breath.

"Blimey," he whispered to the empty room. "That was a close one. What the hell is going on?"

_I need to sleep, _he thought. _That's it. I just need sleep. Rose is always telling me that I don't get enough now that I'm human. I'll feel better when I get some sleep…_

He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the tank before shaking his head and leaving the room to brush his teeth.

_I'm going mad and almost destroyed us all, but here I am now worrying about cavities. Being a human is so strange._

As he stared at himself in the mirror, working the toothbrush around in his mouth, the Doctor had a moment of perfect clarity.

_Dr. O'Brien's office…the case files. If I can get a look at those case files from the couples that were here last month, then maybe…just maybe, I can find a link. It is all connected. And all those little lines are leading straight to Dr. O'Brien._

When the Doctor left the bathroom, about to set out on his new mission, he saw Rose standing in the doorway to the bedroom. She was gaping at the ruined mess of the TARDIS tank. He tried to say something to diffuse the situation, but he was at a loss for words and his mouth snapped shut.

"Doctor, what happened in here?" she asked him, her blonde hair framing her wide, terrified eyes.

He cleared his throat, shoved his hands in his pockets, and rocked back on his heels nonchalantly. "Oh, just…doing some repairs," he lied, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek out of nervousness.

"You've completely undone everything!" she exclaimed, concern coloring her voice.

Of course she'd see right through it; she wasn't stupid.

"Nah. She's fine. It's all fine. Don't you worry, Rose Tyler, I'll have everything ship shape soon. Try saying that five times fast."

"Don't make jokes," she said, becoming angry now. "Doctor, what's gotten into you?"

"Nothing," he snapped. "I'm fine. Told you…it's all fine. I'm just gonna pop down to the shop. Need anything?"

"I don't think you should be goin' anywhere," she told him, shaking her head.

"Nine hundred years of going wherever I please. That's not going to change now," he said with a stern tone and started walking towards the door.

"So you just leave whenever you want?" she asked him.

"Yup," he said, not turning around.

"Then what makes you any different than him?" she shot back at him.

The Doctor left the cabin and stomped out on to the dirt road. Why would she say that to him? Of all the cruel things that she could say…

He was so angry…so angry he could hit something. Then, he stopped. Why had he thought that? He knew himself well enough now to know that he wasn't an angry person or a violent person…not in this form anyway. So why had that thought crossed his mind?

_Something is really not right_, he thought to himself as he continued to make his way to Dr. O'Brien's office.

He passed by dimly lit cabins and all the way, he could hear the couples inside. They were all arguing.

"You never listen!"

"I should have left you years ago!"

"My father was right about you!"

"You always hated that I work!"

"You're terrible, you are! I hate you!"

The Doctor's eyes darted around the resort. What the bloody hell was going on?


	15. Chapter 15

He was surprised to find the lights on in Dr. O'Brien's office, casting a warm glow over the worn pathway. The Doctor wasn't expecting Dr. O'Brien to still be there and it put a slight hiccup in his plan. Well, maybe more of a belch, really.

After straightening his tie, the Doctor knocked on the office door, fully expecting to have to grin like a lunatic and apologize all over himself for the way that he had behaved earlier. He was grateful that, in this incarnation, he was always able to charm his way through almost anything. Then again, he was quite the dapper sort, wasn't he? Oh yes, he'd get Dr. O'Brien to open up. And, failing that, he'd at least be able to distract him enough to find out where the case files were.

Silence.

Alright, so he was here after business hours. That was no reason for poor hospitality, was it?

The Doctor knocked again. Nothing. Well, now this was just rude.

If Dr. O'Brien really didn't want visitors, then he should have thought about investing in a sonic proof door. The Doctor looked around, straightened his shoulders, and aimed the sonic screwdriver at the doorknob. Since it came right open, he figured that he might as well inform Dr. O'Brien of his lack of security. It was only polite, honestly.

But, upon stepping into the office, the Doctor found that perhaps Dr. O'Brien wasn't worried about his security any longer.

The therapist was slumped over on the desk as if he had fallen asleep. A bottle of liquor still sat to his right. It didn't take the Doctor long, however, to see that it was not just a drunken stupor. Blood ran across the desk and stained the mess of papers that were piled around. It dripped onto the floor. It even pooled around the gun that had fallen from Dr. O'Brien's hand.

The Doctor walked carefully over to Dr. O'Brien, felt his pulse, and then ran his sonic screwdriver over him to get a clear reading.

He was gone.

"Well, then I suppose you're not behind all this," he said sadly to the therapist's body. "I'm so sorry. I should have gotten here earlier."

The case files were not hard to find. But they did prove to be of little use since none of the couples that were guests here the previous month were in there. The entire month was missing. The Doctor figured that finding it empty was as much a clue as anything and almost made to leave, but then the bloodstained papers on the desk caught his eye. He made his way closer to the body and read what had been scrawled across the pages in Dr. O'Brien's handwriting.

After running his hand through his hair in frustration at the realization, he slowly backed away.

"Didn't stand a chance," he whispered to Dr. O'Brien. The Doctor then glanced at the clock. "At least I still have time to make it to the shop before they close." He had some very important supplies to buy.


	16. Chapter 16

Rose was stewing back at the cabin. Something very strange was going on here and the Doctor seemed to have just checked out. He had just dismissed her when she told him that she found the TARDIS and talked to the Time Lord Doctor in the forest; then, he berated Dr. O'Brien which got them kicked out of his office and he was their only lead. Finally, they get back here and he locks himself in the bedroom, destroys the TARDIS coral, and then runs off without her.

He wasn't acting very much like himself. In fact, she would go as far as to say that he was behaving like a completely different person…

_That's because he is, she thought. He isn't the Doctor. He's some sort of duplicate wearing the Doctor's face and you know it. The Doctor wouldn't act this way. The Doctor is out there, with the TARDIS (the proper TARDIS), trying to find a way for you to come back._

The moment she thought that, Rose felt terrible. That was just horrible of her to think that, so why had she?

_Because you know it's true._

She gave herself some light smacks on her cheeks to make herself focus. The TARDIS coral…that's what is important right now. She just needed to get a good look at it and figure out what she could do to help.

However, this proved to be more difficult than it sounded. The Doctor had never explained to her what he was doing with the piece of coral. She had no idea what sort of environment it needed and the tank was a complete mess of wires, cables, and duct tape with writing in Gallifreyan scribbled all over it.

She sighed. "English would have been a good start…"

And so she sat on the floor, scanning through her notebooks and research to try to figure out what she could do for the TARDIS. Apparently, absolutely nothing – but she kept reading anyway until she heard the front door slam.

Rose braced herself and tried to remember that they needed to be working together. She couldn't argue with him. She couldn't distract him. There were more important things to be done right now.

He was standing over the kitchen counter, leaning on his outstretched arms over some papers.

"What are those?" she asked from the doorway.

The Doctor didn't look up. "Our file from Dr. O'Brien's office. Wanted to see what he thought of us."

She nodded. "I've been looking at the TARDIS coral and I don't really know what to do 'bout it. But you can fix it, yeah?"

"No, sorry," he said, turning the page and continuing to read.

"Whaddya mean?" Rose asked, coming closer and crossing her arms.

He inhaled dramatically and removed his glasses, finally looking up at her. "I'm not going to fix it. It's dead and it'll stay dead."

"But why?" she demanded, starting to get very upset.

"Because it can't be an independent TARDIS if you mean to use it to connect to his and take you back. It has to fit in just right, like the piece of a puzzle. His TARDIS will recognize a piece of itself across the dimensions and try to pull it in to repair it. If you use the dimension cannon at the right time, then it can pull you along with it. So, if I fix the coral, then it won't need repaired and his TARDIS won't try to bring it home, understand?" He glared at her and went back to rifling through the papers.

"No," she said.

The Doctor sighed. "Oh, c'mon, you're not that stupid. Do I have to speak to you like you're Tony's age?"

Rose gaped at him.

"Very well. The rock has an owie. His blue box will know that the rock has an owie and will try to make the owie better. When it tries that, you can use your big gun to shoot you home. Then, boom, everyone's happy."

"And that's what you want?" she asked him accusingly.

"Yup."

"You want me to leave?"

"Yup."

"Is this one of those 'it's for my own good' things?"

The Doctor raised his eyes to her. His face was a hard set mask. It made her almost shiver to see the lack of emotion in his deep brown eyes. He sniffed arrogantly. "No."

"Then what? Why are you tryin' to send me away now?"

He stood to his full height and squared his shoulders. Rose had never found him particularly intimidating before because any time he was upset with her, she knew the reason behind it. She knew the man behind the oncoming storm. But she had seen the fear in others and she knew that, if he put his mind to it, he could wither a flower with that look. The Doctor could watch whole worlds burn before his eyes and he would be wearing that look. That look that she had never been on the receiving end of. That is, until now.

"You want to go. I know you do, so don't deny it. And I'm relieved, honestly. He can swoop in and take you away and maybe, just maybe, he'll be so kind as to toss the TARDIS coral back to me before the dimensions close again. I'll stay here, fix the tank, get the TARDIS working and then it's allons-y! Off I go!"

"On your own?" Rose repeated in a breathy voice as she stared at him in disbelief.

He let out a burst of disdainful laughter that Rose had never heard come from his mouth. She wanted to tremble. "Course not. I'm never on my own for very long. I'll find someone after you. I did before. And, blimey, won't it be brilliant? I got the short end of the stick here, didn't I? He dumped me here with you and went off traveling while I had no other choice but to play a domestic role – live in your parents' house, fill out paperwork at Torchwood, watch horrible television, listen to your stupid mother ramble about us having children… You wanted me to stay in a cabin, go fishing and play golf with your father, eat chips or family dinners all the time. On top of all that, I had to keep you happy. Every day I had to compete with the memory of the man that I was. What other choice did I have? I had to be Rose Tyler's boyfriend for an entire month and, let me tell you, it was not at all what I had envisioned. Who knew that it would be so bloody boring? All that time that I spent wishing that I could be free to be with you and, come to find out, being with you isn't being free at all. It's confining and stifling. I'm the Doctor and I am no one's consolation prize."

Rose held back the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. "No, you're not the Doctor," she said, aghast.

He smiled in that way that he had that could light up an entire room. But it was somehow dark now. "No, guess not. He'd never be that honest with you, would he? He wouldn't tell you that he's more than what you want him to be. He'd never admit that out loud. He'd just brush you off on a beach in Norway with his clone and move on. You have to hand it to him, don't you? What a brilliant way to finally get you to stay put."

She was finally sobbing now, backing away from him slowly.

The Doctor came around the counter and started walking towards her. She closed her eyes but she could hear his red trainers making their way across the wood floor. When he spoke again, she could feel his breath on her cheek.

"And now he's come back. He's waiting for you. Isn't that what you wanted all along? Oh, don't tell me that you didn't. Your white knight in a long, brown coat coming to whisk you away again. How perfect. He'll take you up into the stars and make everything better. That is, until you get too old to run. Ah, I can see it now. After you get a few wrinkles and gray hairs, he'll shuck you off at some retirement home and just keep on going; never looking back. And that'll be the last he'll think about Rose Tyler. Other companions will come and go and he'll never mention you again – just like Sarah Jane. Because that's what he does. That's your future with him. That's your happily ever after."

"Get away from me," Rose whispered, not opening her eyes. "Go on."

When she heard the front door shut again, Rose walked to the sofa and sank down onto it, drawing her knees up to her chest. She sat there, gathering her strength, until she made her decision.

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**_I'd actually like to apologize for this last chapter. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry – really, I am. I should have my keyboard taken away. But thank you all for continuing to stay with it and for your encouragement!_**


	17. Chapter 17

_**I just couldn't leave you all with that last chapter – so I quickly wrote this one to help. I'll get more published soon! **_

_**:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: **_

The Doctor walked up to the counter of the general shop and proudly displayed the items that he intended on purchasing, dumping them out of his basket in a heap. A young girl with very short, blonde hair and a pink and purple swirly patterned mini-dress was working the register. She gave the Doctor an odd look but began to ring up his merchandise, not asking any questions.

"Mind if I…" he asked, gesturing to a pack of chewing gum that she was about to stick in his bag. She shrugged and handed it to him. The Doctor unwrapped it and popped a stick in his mouth. "Ah, finally; that's the stuff. I tell you, there's no other stuff…that's really it," he said, grinning wildly and chomping the gum.

"Right," the girl said, eyeing him strangely. "Your total is…" She trailed off, biting her lip and sighing in exasperation. "Bloody machine!" she hissed, slamming her hand onto the register as it started to make one of those mechanical noises that never signified anything good. The girl picked it up as if she were going to throw it across the room.

"Ah, wait," the Doctor said, gritting his teeth and holding up his index finger. "I can fix it, promise."

She glowered at him, but set the cash register down none too gently. "Yeah, have a go."

He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his suit pocket, aimed it at the register and it opened immediately. The Doctor smiled at her. "See. All better."

The girl grunted and handed him his change.

"I know," he said, shrugging. "You're so overcome with gratitude that you can't even find the words to thank me. Well, I understand."

"You think you're funny?" she snarled at him sarcastically.

"Oh no," he gasped. "I have a rubbish sense of humor. But I am very observant and I can tell that you're a bit stressed, am I right?

"What's it to ya?" the girl asked, challenging him.

"But I'm right?"

She lowered her eyes. "I guess."

The Doctor winked at her and extended his hand. "You're in luck. I'm the Doctor and I'm here to help."

As she went to shake his hand, the girl looked down and noticed that it wasn't empty. He was handing her a stick of gum.

He left the shop feeling much better; much, much better. But now he had the not so happy task of finding Philip and informing him of Dr. O'Brien's passing. That is, if Philip was still alright. And the Doctor really hoped that he would be. He liked Philip.

Oh, this night was definitely turning around in his favor. He saw Philip pacing around outside the main building, smoking a cigarette and muttering to himself. As the Doctor got closer, he noticed that Philip's hair was mussed and the ascot he was wear was yanked away from his neck as if he had been pulling at it.

"Doctor Smith," Philip said, coming closer to him. "August told me that your wife came home. I'm so glad that she's alright."

"So am I," the Doctor said. "Don't know what I'd have done if we hadn't found her." He shook his head sadly at the thought. "But I need to speak with you. It's important."

"Does it have something to do with my missing staff? Because, Doctor Smith, I'm at my wits end here. I can't find anyone. They all seemed to have vanished."

"Did you try the police again?" the Doctor asked him, knowing that it wouldn't do any good…not with what they were up against, anyway.

Philip sighed and ran his hand through his hair again. "Phone lines are down. The shuttle's not due for days now and, Doctor Smith, we're stranded out here."

The Doctor nodded; he had figured as much. "I found Dr. O'Brien," he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Dr. O'Brien isn't missing," Philip said. "I just talked to him a couple of hours ago. He was the only one that I could find other than Bea over at the shop."

"Dr. O'Brien is dead," the Doctor told him. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. But he is. I found him in his office earlier. It looked as if he had shot himself, but I don't think that's the case."

Philip looked stricken. "I don't understand what's going on here," he said through clenched teeth.

"I know," the Doctor consoled him. "I didn't either until I saw Dr. O'Brien. I don't think he killed himself. I believe he was murdered and I think I know what did it. And if I'm right, then we're in trouble. Big, big trouble – huge. But I'm the Doctor and I always know how to deal with trouble. Well, eventually, anyway. I'm going to need you to come with and have an open mind. Oh, and a stick of gum."


	18. Chapter 18

Her bag was bursting at the seams and Rose had to bounce on it to get it to zip up, but she was able to fit everything she needed into it.

Yeah, she had made up her mind. She was going to see if they could move her to one of the empty cabins so that she didn't have to be around the Doctor anymore. Then, when the shuttle came, she could go to Torchwood in London and build another dimension cannon. She was leaving this universe, one way or another. She was leaving _him_.

Now, she just needed to talk to the Time Lord Doctor, the proper Doctor. She needed to tell him that she did change her mind. She wanted to go back.

But when would he appear again? Rose hoped that he wouldn't take too much longer.

And that's when the front door opened again. She wanted to run out the back and never look at his face. However, she heard voices…

"I just need to talk to Rose," she heard the Doctor say. "You wait here and then I'll explain everything."

She met him in the hallway, holding her bag. She saw Philip behind him in the sitting room. Good. He was in charge here. He could probably get her moved to another cabin.

The Doctor stopped when he saw her. "Have you been crying?" he asked with concern.

"Oh, like you don't know," she said, pushing past him.

"Rose, we need to talk. I've figured it out."

"There is nothing to figure out!" she shouted. "I want to be put into a different cabin. And when the real Doctor comes back, then I'm going with him. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"What?" he asked, his voice going up about three octaves. She noticed that he was chewing gum and it almost fell from his open mouth.

"Earlier. You said so yourself," she explained, pointing a finger at his chest. Then she whirled. "Philip, I want to be moved."

"Mrs. Smith, I think we need to hear your husband out. You don't know what's been going on," Philip said, raising up his hands.

"After what he said to me, I don't need to listen to him anymore," she said, shaking her head and walking away from both of them.

And that was when they heard it. All three of them stopped to listen to the sound of TARDIS engines coming from outside. Philip looked confused, but Rose and the Doctor were both startled.

"Rose, don't go out there!" the Doctor yelled at her back as she passed him to go to the door.

"I'm leaving with him. There's nothing that you can say to change my mind," she said as she reached for the door knob.

The Doctor slammed his hand on the door, closing it in front of her. "Fine," he said, getting very close to her. "Run off with him. But you might want this." He held a stick of gum in front of her face.

She furrowed her brow. "Why?" she asked.

"Fresh breath?" he offered. "No?"

"Ugh," she groaned and shoved him out of the way, opening the door.

There he was again; the Time Lord. The TARDIS loomed behind him and there he stood, leaning against it on the dirt road. His hands were nonchalantly buried deep in his pockets and he smiled manically when he saw her.

"Rose," he said brightly. "I'm getting better at this. Didn't lead you out into the forest this time. Have you given any more thought to my offer?"

"I'm ready, Doctor," she said as she made her way down the steps. "I wanna come with you. I wanna go home. But I need time on the dimension cannon."

"Ah," he said, scratching his chin. "I think I can help with that. You should get a pencil and some paper. I'll give you specific instructions on what to do with the TARDIS coral…" his mouth snapped shut and Rose realized that he was looking behind her.

She turned to find the half-human Doctor standing on the porch. He was staring at the Time Lord Doctor with a look of absolute fury.

The Time Lord Doctor nodded in his direction. "Wasn't really expecting a whole reunion."

"Oh, well that's too bad, isn't it?" the meta-crisis Doctor said, walking closer to them down the steps. "Soooo…" he drug on. "Out with it, then. What's going on?"

"Doctor, I think you need to go back inside. It doesn't concern you anymore," Rose told him angrily.

"Doesn't concern me?" he asked her, eyes wide. "How in the name of Rassilon doesn't this concern me?"

"She's made her choice. Just bow out," the Time Lord said through clenched teeth.

"Ah," the meta-crisis Doctor said. "So you can give her the instructions to turn the TARDIS coral into a nuclear bomb? Nah, don't think so." He came to stand directly in front of the Time Lord, inches from his face. "And next time you want to impersonate me, do try to have a bit more fashion sense. I'd never wear that tie."

"Wha'?" Rose asked, stunned. "Whaddya mean 'impersonate'?"

"That," the meta-crisis Doctor said, pointing to the Time Lord Doctor, "is not me…him…me…whatever. He's not the Doctor."

"I am the Doctor," the Time Lord said, jutting out his chin indignantly.

"Rose, you're brilliant. C'mon, you can figure this out," the meta-crisis Doctor begged her, standing next to the Time Lord. "We get thrown back in time…to a marriage counseling resort, people are disappearing and getting murdered, we're bickering, then he shows up telling you that he can take you home if you do what he says to the TARDIS coral? Doesn't this all seem a bit suspect to you? I mean, just look at that tie." He turned to the Time Lord Doctor. "I'm sorry, but it is really just awful. Who dressed you?"

"But you told me to go with him. You said terrible things about bein' here with me and how you hated it," she explained, feeling like she had missed the introductory course on wonky Doctor-speak.

"I'd never say that," the meta-crisis Doctor said, stalking towards her with determination. His face was stern, but his eyes were kind and warm. "I don't care what form I'm in, what I look like, what I sound like…I would never say that to you, do you understand?"

"No," Rose said, slumping back away from him. She put the heels of her hands to her head. It was hard to concentrate.

"You're confusing her. Leave her alone!" she heard the Time Lord Doctor hiss.

"Oi, would you just shut up?" the meta-crisis Doctor asked him. "I don't want to stand here and argue with myself. Makes me sound nutters." Then he pulled Rose's hands down from her face. "Rose…"

"Yeah?" she asked, opening her eyes and meeting his.

He almost looked like he was going to kiss her. His face was so close to hers… "Really, your breath…" He held up a stick of gum again.

She opened her mouth to gape at him and he shoved the gum in her mouth. "Aha!" he shouted, bouncing around. "There ya go, chew on that!" Then he spun on his heels to face the Time Lord Doctor and started waving emphatically while the TARDIS and the Time Lord faded away right in front of their eyes.

"Doctor…" Rose whispered in shock.

He turned back to her. "Hello."

"What just happened?"

"A hallucination," he explained carefully.

"But you said you didn't want to be here with me. You said it was boring," she shook her head and felt some tears roll down her face.

"Oh, come here," he said, grabbing her and pulling her in for a hug. "Rose Tyler, I love you…I really do. And I love being here with you. Well, maybe not everything about it. I'd like it a lot more if your mum would stop messing with me, but there you have it. Stuck with you is not that bad. Not that bad at all."

She buried her head against his chest. "Yeah?" she asked.

"Yes," he said and lifted her chin up so that she could face him. Then he looked around in the dark of the resort. "But we need to get inside. I s'pose I have some explaining. And you just keep chewing that gum, alright?"

Rose nodded. "Alright. So…that wasn't him, yeah? He hasn't come back?"

The Doctor grabbed her hand and started to lead her back into the cabin. "No, it wasn't him. Really…did you even notice the tie?"

"Good," Rose said. "Good."


	19. Chapter 19

Once they were inside, the Doctor and Philip filled Rose in on the disappearances, Dr. O'Brien's murder, and the phone lines. Rose listened and commented when she needed to, but she was finding it hard to concentrate. She _felt_ something. Before, when she was upset and angry, the air around her seemed as if it were a pressing weight. She had been almost…itchy…that was the word. Like the anxiety that was inside her was crawling through her skin and out into the air, making it dense and cloying. Now, she could still feel the heaviness in the air, but it wasn't touching her – almost as if she was in a bubble.

The Doctor noticed that she was looking around apprehensively. "You feel it, don't you?" he asked softly, leaning forward in his chair. "Like you're in a plastic sack that's been dunked in a vat of syrup."

Rose held up her hand and moved it through the air. That was exactly what she felt like. "What is it?" she asked him, still staring at her hand.

"Bad ju-ju," he said, sighing.

"Sorry?" Philip asked, eyeing them both as if they were mad.

"Well, it's not really ju-ju," the Doctor explained, clasping his hands together in his lap. "That would be silly. It's actually a creature made of pure, negative energy. It does all sorts of things – makes you feel angry, annoyed, frustrated, depressed…it feeds on this. But that's just the amuse bouche, the hors d'œuvre. Certain people are more susceptible and it's clever. It picks out the favorites like you would pass over salad at a buffet and go straight to the pudding. It can learn about you, get inside your head, create hallucinations, and wreak havoc. The more it has to feed off of, the stronger it gets until it can drive just about everyone it comes in contact with insane."

"So all it wants is to feed off of everyone's anger and depression?" Rose asked.

"Oh, no," the Doctor said, running his tongue over his teeth absentmindedly. "It also wants to destroy everything. But it doesn't really have a physical form – I mean, it can take one, or appear to and it can make you hear, feel, smell, and see things…but it can't really manifest itself to cause anything to happen. It relies on its victims to do the damage for it."

"Like the nuclear bomb," Rose said, finally letting it all sink in.

The Doctor nodded solemnly.

"But if I was hallucinating the other Doctor, then why could you see him too?"

"Because it plucked the image and knowledge out of your head and took on that form."

"So it could choose any form it wants. It could look like any one and walk around here, making everyone do what it wants, yeah?"

"No," the Doctor said. "It's not that powerful, not yet anyway. Like I said, it only really affects those who are the most susceptible. Most will just feel very cross and not know why."

"So what about me, then? And you…you saw it too. And Philip heard the TARDIS."

"Unfortunately, the more telepathic you are, the more it can feed off you. We're easy targets. Time Lord brain here and you've had the time vortex in your head. We are the pudding, I'm afraid. And Philip, well, you must be pretty special. Very empathetic, I'd wager; Dr. O'Brien too. And it's getting stronger, because of us. We've given it a veritable feast."

"So what is it exactly?" Rose wondered. "What planet is it from?"

"It's not from any planet that I know of. Not really. It's old, very old. My people called it the Na'vorotti. At one time, they existed everywhere. They made their way across the galaxies, destroying everything. Since Time Lords were very affected by it, they trapped the Na'vorotti from every galaxy and dimension in a dimension of its own. I have no idea what one is doing here or how it got out. But, you gotta give it credit, a marriage counseling resort? It has hit the jackpot here on Earth."

"Alright, so now I have to ask," Rose told him, a quirk of a smile on her lips, "what's with the gum?"

"Ah, peppermint," the Doctor explained, tugging on his ear. "For some reason, and…I have no idea why… the Na'vorotti hates peppermint. Makes it harder for it to get in your head, not impossible, mind you, but it does repel it. I believe that's why Philip here is the only staff member left."

Rose looked over to see Philip sitting silently, watching them with a curious expression on his face. He wasn't taking this in well. "What's peppermint got to do with Philip?" she asked, giving Philip a reassuring smile. Yeah, he thought they were bonkers.

"He smokes menthol," the Doctor pointed out. "Interestingly enough, Philip, I do believe that those cigarettes have saved your life."

"And…the disappearances of the staff?" Rose asked, prompting him to get off the subject of Philip since he was still sitting there in complete silence.

"Well," the Doctor went on, placing his folded hands in a prayer position against his nose. "haven't quite worked that one out yet. Either they're dead because of the Na'vorotti or something else has happened to them. Since we haven't found any bodies except for Dr. O'Brien's, I'm feeling a little optimistic about that."

"How optimistic?" she asked.

"Oh, seventy thirty," he replied.

"That's not good," she said, grimacing.

"Oi, I said a little," he argued.

"Alright, I don't understand any of this," Philip almost yelled out, tugging his ascot off and wiping his brow with it. "Planets, dimensions, time something or other. What are you people on?"

"Time Lord," the Doctor said, correcting him.

"I know," Rose sympathized. "It's a lot to take in."

"It's insane," Philip said, getting up from his chair.

The Doctor held out another stick of gum to Philip.

"I don't need any gum, Doctor Smith!" Philip yelled as he made to walk towards the door. "I'm going to try to fix the phone and get in contact with the police."

"They can't help you," the Doctor said from his chair, not turning around. "And you won't get those phones fixed. I've got ten quid on the Na'vorotti getting someone here to muck up the phone lines. I told you, it's clever."

"Then what am I supposed to do, because what you're talking about is…"

"Yeah," the Doctor said, finally standing up and sauntering over to Philip, nodding his head and waving his hand in a circle. "Yeah, it is, isn't it? It's mad, insane, bonkers, nutters, ridiculous…Rose, help me out here…"

"Impossible," she said, shrugging. "Ludicrous. Preposterous. I mean, we've heard them all before."

"Hello, Philip," the Doctor said, grabbing his hand and shaking it. "I'm the Doctor and this is Rose. I'm an alien that was born again human. I'm over nine hundred years old. This is Rose Tyler. We're both from another dimension and another time. A piece of my time machine, called the TARDIS, brought us here. And now a monster is running amok on your resort and we're really the only ones who can help you. So are you going to accept our help or not? Because if you want our help, you're going to have to believe everything I tell you."

Philip swallowed and wiped his brow again. "I don't know…"

"Here," Rose said, "follow me." She brought him to the bedroom where the TARDIS coral sat in the tank and the Doctor's odd tools were scattered all over the place. Rose handed him her mobile. "It's a phone, from the future." She showed him the camera, played an MP3, and got on a silly game application. "We're telling the truth," she said as he marveled at the technology.

"Okay," Philip said, relenting. "Let's say that I believe all this nonsense. There's some sort of monster out there that only you can stop, right?"

"Right," Rose said, nodding.

"Then how are you going to do that?"

"Oh, I have a degree in monster thwarting," the Doctor said, leaning against the door frame with his hands crossed over his chest. He cleared his throat. "A doctorate, to be exact." He smiled wide.


	20. Chapter 20

"So we're doin' what now, exactly?" Rose asked the Doctor as she watched him dump out piles and piles of packs of gum and tins of mints out of a sack and onto the coffee table.

"We get everyone on the gum and mints, for a start. I've got every brand you could think of here," he said, fanning them all out across the table. "We need to gather everyone together in one place. It'll try to separate us. Makes it easier for it to get inside your head and learn about you. The Na'vorotti likes to isolate its victims. It picks them off one by one. Remember, the more it toys with you, the more it can feed. Ultimately, it will try to get you to do something terrible. So it's best to surround yourself with others. Philip, how difficult do you think it'll be to get everyone to camp out in the main building?"

"Are we telling them the truth?" Philip asked, popping another stick of gum in his mouth.

"Ah, no. Not at first, anyway. That never works out well. I usually end up in a prison of some sort or tied up and gagged," he explained, tugging on his ear and making a face as if he was remembering something not so pleasant.

Rose pursed her lips together to keep from giggling.

"What?" he asked her, taking in her amusement.

"It's just I can't imagine you ever bein' silent," she quipped.

He genuinely looked insulted for a second before trying to hide a smile himself. Then the Doctor leaned towards her and whispered in her ear, "Welcome back."

"Rose Tyler, reporting for duty," she said, smiling with her tongue between her teeth.

The lighthearted half-smile faded from his face and his eyes met hers with a quiet intensity. He looked like he wanted to say something… But then he cleared his throat and glanced away. "Right," he said a little too loudly. "Tell everyone that they need to get to the main building for the night. You can tell them that they're in danger and people have gone missing. That should be enough to get them to cooperate, I should hope. If not, then we'll go to Plan B.2."

"And what's plan B.2?" Rose asked.

The Doctor scrunched up his face. "Well I don't know that yet, do I? That's why it's point two." Then he dashed off to the bedroom. "My stuff! I'll need my stuff! Then we'll split up…not that I'm generally usually for that…" Philip and Rose heard him say from the other room. "Hope you're keeping up out there!"

"He's always like this?" Philip asked Rose quietly.

She inclined her head and then nodded. "Yeah. You get used to it…or just put up with it, I dunno."

The Doctor poked his head around the corner, brainy specs falling down on his nose. "Put up with what?"

They packed their bags, wished 'good luck' to Philip, and set off on their own paths to gather up all the remaining couples at the resort. The Doctor shoved another stick of gum into Rose's mouth before they parted.

"How will I know it's you if I see you again?" she asked, chewing on her nails as thoroughly as she was chewing the gum. "I mean, before…I thought it was you saying all those horrible things. And you said that the peppermint only repels it…"

He inhaled sharply and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Something will be off. You'll know. Trust your instincts. It can't really cloud your judgment with the peppermint."

"Alright," she said, nodding. "I'm gonna go get Sabrina and William."

"Rose," the Doctor said before he set off in his own direction, "if you knock and no one answers, just leave the cabin. Do you understand? Do not trap yourself anywhere."

"Yeah," Rose said. "Yeah, I know."

She couldn't have been more relieved to find the lights on and the sound of voices coming from Cabin 2E, even if they were angry ones.

"But you promised," Rose heard Sabrina say.

"Yeah, I promised that if I hadn't gotten the promotion by next year we'd look into getting a proper house. But I'm up for it now, Sabrina. We can't move out of the city."

"William, that flat only has one bedroom. Where would we put a nursery?"

"That again? Really…do you think we have time for children? We can barely find a moment to walk the dog."

Rose knocked loudly.

"Rose?" Sabrina said, answering the door. "Everything alright?"

"Not really. No," Rose said. "People are disappearing and Dr. O'Brien was found dead in his office. I'm so glad that you two are alright! But you're gonna need to come with me." She handed Sabrina a pack of gum and a tin of mints. "Please, pack a bag and eat one of these."

"What? Why? What do you mean Dr. O'Brien is dead?" Sabrina's eyes were wide and afraid. She didn't move from the doorway.

William came to stand behind her. "You're that girl from the meet and greet. What are you talking about, dead?"

"Dr. O'Brien's been murdered and we need everyone to get to the main building. Please, just pack a bag and we'll explain everything when we're safe," Rose begged.

"If he's been murdered then we need to ring the police. Where is Philip?" William demanded.

Rose sighed. Why were the men always this difficult? "We can't phone the police. The phones are dead."

"Then get in here," Sabrina said, grabbing Rose's arm and jerking her through the door. "I'll get the bags together." She ran off to the bedroom.

William started muttering about how he was never going on holiday again and gathering up papers that were strewn all about the coffee table. He was still ranting and raving when Sabrina returned, handing him a suitcase and slipping on her shoes.

"Will, let's go," she said forcefully.

"Where is the Grescon file?" he shouted, still bothering with the papers.

"We really don't have time for this," Rose warned Sabrina.

"Who cares about the bloody file?" Sabrina said. She wasn't so timid anymore. "It's not important!"

"It is!" he yelled back at her.

Rose was getting tired of this. She stepped forward and ripped all the papers from his hands and the ones from the table, walked to the kitchen (despite the loud protests from William), threw them all in the sink, grabbed the tea kettle from the stove, and poured the tea out onto the papers. "There!" she yelled back at him. "Now you don't need them. Let's shift!"

"Those were important!" William shouted.

"No, Mate," Rose said, putting a stick of gum in William's hand and then pointing over to Sabrina, "she is. Now chew that. It helps, trust me."

William stared at the gum for a second before unwrapping it and putting the stick in his mouth, eyeing Rose suspiciously. His face fell and he looked properly chastised as he met his wife's eyes.

"Feel better?" Rose asked him.

He nodded. "Yeah. Why is that?"

"I'll tell ya when we're safe, alright?"

"Okay," he agreed. Then he picked up his suitcase, walked over to Sabrina, and took her bag from her hand. "I've got it, Sweetheart. Let's get you out of here."

Sabrina followed after him, her brow furrowed in confusion. She turned to Rose and mouthed, "Thank you."

Rose nodded.


	21. Chapter 21

The three of them returned to the main building to find the Doctor and Philip helping everyone get settled. Rose was shocked to find only a handful of couples and the young girl from the shop setting up cots and speaking in hushed tones.

"Is this all there is?" Rose asked Philip.

"Yeah," he said somberly, handing out pillows and blankets. "Other cabins were empty. No sign of a struggle. Nothing."

"What did ya tell everyone?" Rose wondered.

"He told them that there's a toxic gas in the air and that continuing to chew the gum helps regulate their oxygen levels so they don't die," Philip said with a hint of admiration.

"Sounds like something he'd say." She smiled and patted Philip on the arm.

"Everyone all set up, then?" she heard the man in question ask from behind her.

"We've got the cots and a fully stocked kitchen in the back. So I think we're good for the night," Philip told the Doctor.

"Brilliant," the Doctor said, beaming. "We'll just keep everyone together until I can figure our way of this."

"And how long will that take?" Philip asked him hopefully.

"Oh, not too long, I should think. Bit of a jam, this. But my people have stopped this thing before. It's just a matter of thinking up a way to trap it and…how to trap it. I'm a bit limited at the moment."

"Oh," Philip said as his face fell. "I'll just…try to keep everyone calm, then?"

"Right," the Doctor said, nodding. "Rose, I need you."

"Sorry?" she asked, turning towards him.

He cleared his throat and started rubbing the back of his neck absentmindedly. "I, uh, need you to come with me, that is."

She followed him past the kitchens to a little room where they kept the furnace and such. The TARDIS tank was all set up in the middle, surrounded by cables.

"You've fixed it?" she asked, going over to inspect the tank.

"Ah, no. Not quite. But she's still pulling through. I've got the environment set up right again. But we don't have the power that I need to put the ol' girl back on the mend." He sat down next to the tank and ran the sonic screwdriver over it. After looking at the readings, he drug his hand down over his face and lowered his head, keeping his eyes thoughtfully locked on the TARDIS coral. "I'm in a bit of bind, actually. There's a dilemma that I'd like your opinion on."

"And what's that?" she asked, sitting next to him and soothingly running her hand over the glass of the tank.

"It's all about energy, really. The TARDIS coral used the energy that the Na'vorotti was sucking up to bring us here. Then, when I was in the bedroom, the Na'vorotti tried to make me think that I was regenerating. It wanted to feed off of the regeneration energy but since I don't have that ability anymore, it only made me hallucinate it. Since it failed in that, it retaliated by making me destroy the TARDIS coral's tank and it wanted one of us to make it nuclear. In doing so, it trapped us here since, like I said, it seems to like us. Now, we've got everyone out there breathing peppermint all over the place like a day after the pub. It'll keep the Na'vorotti away but we don't have enough gum to last the rest of the week. By my estimation, this needs to be sorted in the next twenty four hours.

So now I have twenty four hours to find the missing people and do something about the Na'vorotti. It needs to be contained. The TARDIS coral can do this, but it might end her life." Rose paused with her hand on the tank and the Doctor reached out to take her hand in his. "Which means that we would lose the TARDIS and we could never go back. We'd have to live out the rest of our days in this time."

Rose let out a shaky breath. "We can't ever see Mum, Dad, and Tony again."

The Doctor shook his head.

"But it would save everyone, yeah?" she asked, blinking back tears.

"Yeah," he said, swallowing and studying her face.

"Then we have to do it. We don't have a choice, really."

He gave her a small smile and ran his thumb over her knuckles. "Thought you might say that."

"S'not so bad…1974. How'd you reckon I'd look in go-go boots?" she asked, grinning with her tongue between her teeth.

The Doctor raised his eyebrow and let out a chuckle. "I wonder if they make bell bottomed pinstripe trousers."

"Oh, don't you dare," she teased.

Then he dropped her hand and stared intently at the tank. "There's a catch."

She sighed and leaned her head back against the wall. "There always is. Out with it then."

"The TARDIS coral in infancy. She's sentient, but running on pure instinct at the moment. Her instinct to protect and keep you happy is what brought us here. The only way that she'll expend the amount of energy needed to pull the Na'vorotti inside her is if she believes that one of us is in serious danger. We have to exploit this instinct to our favor."

"We have to be bait," Rose breathed out. It was not a question.

Just then, they heard a clang from across the dimly lit room.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes and got up from the floor. He held out his index finger indicating to Rose to wait there and went to investigate the noise. Of course, she didn't listen, (Why would she? She never did before.) and followed him around the corner of the furnace to find the door to the room slightly ajar.

"And I think," the Doctor said ominously, glaring out of the darkness, "that we're not just dealing with the Na'vorotti."


	22. Chapter 22

Needing a good cuppa before bed, Rose made her way to the kitchen after the Doctor said that he was going to check on the others. She was surprised to find William in there with the same thought in mind. She was even more surprised when he poured her a cup and slid it along the counter to her.

"It tastes bloody awful with the gum," he said, apologetically. "But tea is tea."

She nodded and took a sip, grimacing. He was right.

"It's not gas, is it?" he asked, staring down into his mug. "I'm not mental. There's something very wrong here."

"No," she said reassuringly, "you're not mental." Then she sighed. "Would ya believe me if I told you that it's an alien creature that feeds on anger and sadness?" Rose almost laughed at how mental she sounded.

William took a deep breath. "A couple of days ago, I would have said that it's a good thing for you that we have shrinks here." He chuckled. "But now… I don't know. I mean, Sabrina and I always had our problems, sure. Never like this, though. The entire time we've been here, I haven't felt like myself. Not until you gave me that gum, that is. I was so angry with no explanation."

"It doesn't like peppermint," she explained feebly.

"Sure," he said simply. "Makes sense."

"It does?" she asked, furrowing her brow.

"As good as any," he said, shrugging. "I believe ya. Why wouldn't I after all those horrible things I've said to Sabrina while we've been here?"

"Were they really that bad?" Rose asked him.

"Yeah," he admitted. "Yeah, they were. Told her that I never wanted to have kids with her. I actually said that she's so unbearable, why would I want to risk having a kid like her."

"My God," Rose gasped.

"I know." William nodded emphatically. "Why would I say such a thing? I love her. I don't think she's unbearable. The funny thing is, I want kids. I really do. I just didn't think we needed to have them now. But the more we've been here, the more that I didn't want them. I just wanted to be left alone with my work. And Sabrina tells me that I'm a workaholic, but it's just gotten out of control here. I couldn't think about anything other than work."

"So that's it?" Rose asked. "That's the whole reason that you're here. She wants to have a baby now and you wanted to wait?"

"More or less. We've been fighting about when to have a baby for the past two years. But, believe me, it's not because I don't want to. I just wanted to put some money aside, you know? I just wanted security at work first. Kids aren't cheap and I want to give my family the best."

Rose gave him a sad smile. "Does Sabrina know that?"

"No," William admitted. "They're cutting people at the firm. I didn't want her to worry. She believes in me so much. I wanted her to be proud of me."

"Dontcha think you need to be tellin' her this? I'm sure she'd understand."

William looked thoughtful for a moment. "Probably. And after all this…if we make it out of here… I'd be more than happy to have a baby while we have the chance."

Rose reached across the counter and held his hand. "I'll dump tea all over _you_ if you don't go tell her this right now," she said before they both burst into laughter and he gave her a mock salute.


	23. Chapter 23

Sabrina Greene was watching the Doctor scan the phone with the sonic screwdriver. She had stayed silent for a very long time, scrutinizing him. It was beginning to make him feel uncomfortable. He just couldn't figure out what the blasted problem was with the phone lines and now this woman was eyeing a hole into the back of his head. He wouldn't have said that he was one to be afflicted with performance anxiety, but now…

"Make yourself useful, if you're just going to stand there," he said, handing her the wire to the phone and running his sonic over it. She obliged, but still watched him. "What?" he asked her in a squeaky voice. Had he dribbled on himself? Was his tie knotted funny? Did he grow another nose out of his forehead?

"Why are you here?" she asked him.

He narrowed his eyes at her and then turned his attention back to the phone. "I'm here to help," he said simply.

"No, why are you and Rose here? What do you need counseling for?"

"Problems. Issues. We've got…those things," he sputtered out, not really paying attention.

"I don't believe that," she said sharply.

"Is this the Spanish Inquisition?" he snapped. "I'm trying to work here."

"I'm perceptive," she explained.

"Oh, good. Maybe you can do a better job with this lot then the therapists have been," he said, tapping on the phone and holding the entire thing up to his ear.

Sabrina sighed and came to stand in front of him. "But there is something wrong. I can see it. But it's not like the rest of us. It's strange."

"Hmm, what's strange?" he asked, again, not paying full attention. He had things to tinker with. Did she not understand tinkering required concentration and…lots of tinkering related facial expressions?

"She loves you, very much. I can tell that she completely adores you. Every time she looks at you, her face lights up and she just has this insane amount of trust in her eyes."

The Doctor paused then. He lowered the phone and raised his chin, giving Sabrina a very grim look. But he stayed silent.

"But you… there's something else there when you look at her. You smile at her like she's the only reason you smile. But when her back is turned, you look at her how a man dying of thirst would at a mirage of water across the desert. It's like you're grateful, but at the same time, you don't expect it to be real. As if you think she's unreachable to you. You don't think you deserve all that trust, do you?"

Swallowing thickly, the Doctor elected not to answer her. He picked the phone back up and started scanning it again.

"I just can't put my finger on why two married people who are obviously so much in love would behave as if they're stumbling in the dark, still looking for each other."

"You're awfully descriptive," he noted, not meeting her eyes.

"I write romance novels in my spare time," she explained proudly.

"It shows," he said, smirking.

"So why is that?" she asked, returning to the original subject. He was hoping, in vain, that she would've dropped it. "Why do you look at her with such longing if you two are really married?"

The Doctor took a deep breath and set the phone down. "Ah, you found us out," he admitted. "Not married. Not yet…or, well…" he tugged on his ear (that was turning a bright red), and went back to the phone.

"What do you think she'd say?" Sabrina asked him.

"Say about what?" he wondered, finally looking at her innocently.

"If you asked her to marry you…what would she say?"

"Oh, dunno," he said, wanting to run into his TARDIS and disappear, quite frankly.

"I don't know why you seem to think that you're not worthy, but she obviously thinks that you are. She's not unreachable, Doctor Smith. She's right over there…" Sabrina smiled at him and pointed behind him.

He turned to see Rose talking to Philip. Rose saw him looking and smiled brightly at him. "Yeah…yeah, I know."


	24. Chapter 24

The Doctor made Rose pick a cot and try to sleep. She glared at him when he took a seat on the cot next to her and spit the gum in his hand.

"Have to lure it out," he explained. Then he glanced quickly around the room. Rose followed his eyes. "Everything seems to be working out in our favor," the Doctor told her, gesturing to all the couples sleeping snuggled up with each other. Rose smiled to see William sitting next to a sleeping Sabrina, stroking her hair. "Let the Na'vorotti feed on that!" he exclaimed, the corners of his mouth quirking up.

August Harrison and his wife, however, were sleeping in separate cots with their backs to each other. Noticing this, Rose nudged the Doctor and pointed to them.

"Ah," he said, "not surprised. Still, I think I might be beating the ninety eight percent success rate."

Rose sat up and spit out her gum too. The Doctor gave her a look of warning.

"You said we have to be bait," she said.

"With all the peppermint in this room, I doubt we'll get it to come out and play just yet," he admitted. "But there is something we could do…"

"Like what?" she asked.

"Give it something that it can't resist," he said, clearing his throat and suddenly looking very uncomfortable, sitting there on his cot with his hands folded in his lap. He took a deep breath and met her eyes. "Canary Wharf. Torchwood Tower. I could hear you… I could hear you crying. I also smelled your perfume. I stood there, against the wall, listening to you until the breach closed all the way and I couldn't hear you anymore. Never told you that. I was walking back to the TARDIS when I got the idea to find a gap to say goodbye. You don't know how fast I ran to find one. I couldn't do anything…eat, sleep, travel…I had to see you one last time."

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Rose asked, sitting up.

He held up his index finger. "Let me finish, please. Don't know if I can say all this otherwise." His voice was low and humorless. "I was going to tell you that I loved you, you know. I really was. Then I was cut off and I stood there, in complete shock. I had myself all worked up; I was prepared and had gathered my strength to say those words. It was my last chance to say it, said so myself. And then…" he worked his lower jaw around in a slow half circle before shutting his mouth abruptly. "I would have stood there brooding for hours, days, however long I wanted. But then there was Donna, in a wedding dress, screaming at me."

Rose couldn't help it, she laughed aloud remembering the Doctor telling her about the first time he met Donna Noble.

Giving her a small smile, his eyes crinkling around the edges kindly, the Doctor continued. "You know about the Racnoss," he said, smile fading away. "Donna told me what happened when the two of you were in the universe that was created around her; the one where she never met me. And that's what would have happened, honestly. I wasn't in my right mind, Rose. It took Donna to pull me out of that. There was so much darkness from losing you, I would have drowned in it. I've lost people close to me before, of course. It hurts, it always does. I knew that I would, one day, have to say goodbye to you. But damned if I didn't want you to stay with me forever.

"Donna wouldn't go with me, at first. I scared her. But, really, I didn't blame her. I was scaring myself. It took her rejecting my offer to make me see that I couldn't become that. Then I met Martha. Ah, Martha Jones; she was brilliant, she was. But in my grief for you, I didn't do right by her. I ignored her and took her for granted. You really wouldn't have liked me much then. She helped distract me, but it was just too fresh. I wasn't ready for another companion, quite frankly, even though I needed someone. Martha was a very good friend to me but I was not a very good friend to her."

The Doctor proceeded to tell Rose all about his time traveling with Martha. She had heard some of it before but he had always glossed over the painful bits. Now, he didn't hold back. The Doctor informed her of what he did to the Family and she could hardly believe that this was her Doctor that did those things. He told her about the Master and the year that never was. Rose found herself holding his hand by the end of the story. She remembered when he had first told her about the Master aboard the TARDIS and she was well aware how much pain that must have caused the Doctor. How horrible that must have been, to realize that he wasn't the last anymore and then to have it yanked away again; one more Time Lord that he couldn't save.

"Martha left after that," the Doctor said, staring down at where his fingers intertwined with Rose's. "I told you she was brilliant, and I meant it. So brilliant, in fact, that she had the good sense to leave. And then, same ol' life, me; running around, last of the Time Lords… before Donna came crashing back into it. I needed Donna more than I think I realized at the time. She was my best friend and she always did what you needed a best friend to do. For the first time in a long time, I was traveling with someone who made me accountable for my actions. She didn't let me sulk. She didn't let me make excuses. She didn't let me check out and stand above it all. Really put things in perspective, you know. Donna was never one for the big picture, the grand scheme, the greater good, etc. She grounded me, and I needed grounding.

"Oh, you would have loved her. You know, she's the one that really brought me out of my brooding over losing you. Before, I really wouldn't talk about you; which is shameful since I did promise you that I would never do that to you. It was just…a little too painful. But there was always something of yours lying about that I would run into. I almost wonder if the TARDIS wasn't doing that on purpose, actually. Every time I stumbled across something of yours, Donna would use it to get me to open up. First, it was your jumper in the console room. Then, I'd find your hairbrush stuffed down in the cushions of the sofa in the media room and I'd end up telling Donna about the time that Mickey wanted to watch the Star Wars remake from 2045 and you refused because they changed Yoda to a tall, dark, handsome bloke instead of a small alien with big ears. Once, while doing repairs, I found one of your trainers wrapped in wires beneath the console and told her about the crash landing that sent it there and how you looked for that shoe for hours. Your tea mug, the one with roses on it that I got you at that market on Gabback, still sat in the kitchen by the sink. Donna found it while she was washing out hers one day and teased me about the lipstick mark on it, asking me if I liked to wear lipstick and pretty dresses when she went to bed at night. I told her it was yours and that I couldn't bring myself to wash it. She just set it back by the sink.

"Ah, but the time she found me in your room…Well, that was probably the worst of it. We had just gotten back from solving a mystery about a giant wasp with Agatha Christi and I wanted Donna to read _Death on the Nile_. It wasn't until after I told her about it that I realized that you had been reading it when you… Anyway, I knew it was probably in your bedroom. Now, I hadn't been in your room since I lost you. I had the TARDIS put it in storage and out of sight. So, as you can imagine, it was especially difficult for me to pull it up and walk into it again. Rose, it still smelled like you – like that raspberry vanilla perfume that you wore that day at Torchwood. The book was right there on your nightstand, but I couldn't reach for it. I sat on your bed for hours, staring at that ridiculous purple stuffed alien with the six eyes that I won for you at the carnival on Ryletten. I kept thinking about that day and how you laughed when that Rylettenian in the booth couldn't guess my age."

"We went in that Tunnel of Love," Rose remembered, smirking.

"Told ya I had moves," the Doctor said, giving her that cocky grin.

"If I remember correctly, Mr. Moves, we were chased into that Tunnel of Love 'cause you pointed out, to an entire crowd, how the magician did every trick," Rose reminded him.

"Well…still counts though, I was holding your hand. Anyway, Donna came looking for me and, of course, when she came in, I grabbed the book, stood up and started prattling away about where we were going next. I tried to shrug it all off and send the room back into storage, but she wouldn't let me. 'Oi, Doctor, you don't need to forget about her,' she told me," the Doctor said in his best impersonation of his former ginger companion. "I told her that I was fine and that I should probably just delete the room from the TARDIS, but she refused to let me saying, 'You loved her. Don't deny it, ya daft Time Lord. Big ol' brain and yet you're still so dim. Would Rose want you to delete it? Would she want you to just forget about her?' And that's when I broke down. I couldn't do that to you. And that's when I realized – I had put you away. I'd put you in storage. I hardly even spoke about you to Donna, my best friend, because I wanted to forget. It was easier to forget. But she was right, that wasn't fair to you. It wasn't what you deserved." The Doctor let go of Rose's hand and looked up at the ceiling. "Told her everything after that. Talked about you all the time. And you know what? I started to feel better. Strange, isn't it? I was dead set on forgetting and moving on. But that's not the way things work, I suppose. By locking you away, I had made you a taboo subject; which, only made every memory of you remind me that I lost you. When I didn't tip toe around my memories anymore, it was liberating. And because of my memories of you and having Donna around, I was finally able to be the man that I was when I was traveling with you."

"Then I'm sure Donna's helping the other Doctor with it all then, yeah?" Rose asked.

"Ah, not as such," the Doctor admitted, looking down at his trainers and not meeting her eyes. "She took my knowledge into her mind. That'll kill any human. She wouldn't have been able to stay with him."

Rose gasped and sat back away from him. "She died? You both let me think that he'd be alright and have someone and she was dying. You both knew this? And you've been hiding this from me for the entire month that you've been here?" she accused.

"No, Rose. Donna would have died. But if he wiped her memory, which I'm sure he did, knowing him – and I do – then she'd be alright. He would have had to erase every trace of himself from her mind, though. She'd just go back to being Donna – the Donna that never met me. And that's not so bad, really."

"So he is on his own?" Rose asked her Doctor. "You both still kept that from me."

"We did," he agreed. "S'pose we both thought it was for the best."

She shook her head. "You're still doing it. Still hiding things from me because you don't think that I can handle them."

"I didn't hide it from you," he said sternly, finally looking up to her. "I didn't want to talk about it. I was doing the same thing to Donna's memory that I was doing with the memory of you – locking it away, putting it in storage. It hurts to know that neither version of me has my best friend anymore. And…I admit that I didn't want you to worry about him – the other me. It was wrong of me, I know, but I was worried that if you knew he'd be alone again, you'd regret staying here with me."

After taking a deep breath and gathering her thoughts, Rose reached over and held his hand again. "I'll never regret it, not in a million years. But you're right, I do worry about him being on his own."

"Oh, he'll be fine," the Doctor said, nodding. "The universe goes on and so does the Doctor. He'll find someone else; he always does – whether he wants to or not."

"Why are you tellin' me all this?" Rose asked him. "Why now?"

"I'm ringing the dinner bell," the Doctor said simply.

"Ohhh." Rose understood his meaning. This thing feeds off of sadness, anger, and despair. Well, they had their share of that, hadn't they? "Reckon I could have a go at it?" she asked.

The Doctor eyed her cautiously, but nodded and gestured in her direction. "Bring up anything you'd like. The more heart wrenching, the better."

"I had to watch you die," she said suddenly and he gulped, knowing where she was heading with that. "Every universe that I jumped into, you died under the Thames. Donna wasn't there – in any of them until I jumped into the one that was created around her. At first, I didn't put it all together and I tried to stay away from her so that I didn't mess up the timelines. I was just going to go back to UNIT, but I noticed that there was something that I couldn't see on her back. Sounds mental, but I sensed that it was there. I left her alone and went back to the UNIT facility to try to find the right universe and I was able to break through a bit with the help of the TARDIS. I locked on to her and was able to project myself through. She saw me once – spoke to me. But I couldn't say anything to her." Rose smiled. "I was just an image. So I tried to use the monitor on the TARDIS that we salvaged to just get a message across. I used the monitor of the TARDIS to see out through the monitor of your TARDIS in the correct universe. I saw Donna, but it was only for a second and she didn't see me. Then, I tried again and the TARDIS locked on to you. I saw out through a screen of some kind again. You had your back to me, though. It looked like you were on a train, surrounded by people. I tried to yell your name, but you didn't hear me and then it was just gone. That thing on her back was still bothering me and that's when I realized what was going on. I realized that someone was messing with her timeline. It was all connected to her. She didn't exist in any universe but that one and the original one – our original one. That's when I went to find her again; to correct the timelines. I jumped through so many universes that I lost count… and you died in every one of them."

The Doctor looked solemn and haunted. "That must have been hard…for you to think that I would die after we parted."

"But dontcha see, Doctor?" Rose asked him in a quiet voice. "You were meant to, honestly. It all had to do with Donna. Without her, you really would have died. There's only one version of her, throughout time and space – in any universe. That's why that universe that the Time Beetle created was so wrong. She was only ever meant to exist in one – the one that she saved you in. If you hadn't of met her, you would have died. You did die, I saw it happen time and time again. I was always just a little too late every time because I wasn't supposed to save you – she was."

"Always knew she was special," the Doctor said, grinning.

"I tried so hard to get back to you," Rose said.

"I know." The Doctor ran his thumb over her knuckles reassuringly.

"Did he even care?" she asked him, making him give her a horribly guilty look. "I mean, you said that you're the same person – and I really believe that you are. So can you tell me if he even cared? I know why he did it and I can't say that I'm not grateful for all this… for you and the chance that we've been given. But can you tell me that it wasn't just a ploy to get rid of me?"

"Oh, Rose," he said, sucking a big breath of air through his teeth. "You know him. You're right, I'm always sending you away because I think that it's best for you. That's all that was. He wanted you to be happy and he knew that he couldn't give you the life that you deserved. He couldn't be with you, not really. And…I could…I can. He saw that opportunity to give you the best of both worlds and acted selflessly – or so he thought. I know it seems like I'm your pat on the head for a job well done, but I hope that you don't think of me that way. He's me and I'm him. I love you…so does he. I'm willing to bet that it broke both his hearts to lose you again. But he did what he thought was best for you…not for him."

"I don't think you're my pat on the head," she said, giving him a sad, half smile. "Do you think you're my consolation prize?"

"What?" he asked her. "Why would you think that?"

"Somethin' that thing said to me when it looked like you," Rose explained. "It said, 'I'm the Doctor and I am no one's consolation prize.' Cuz I don't think of you that way. I wouldn't go with him now if he did come back. I want you to know that. TARDIS or no TARDIS, you're my Doctor now. I just wanted to make sure that he didn't send me off here because he wanted to be free of me."

"Quite the contrary," her Doctor told her. "I said that I wanted you to stay with me forever, and I meant it. He just knew that it wasn't possible. There would come a time when you would have to leave for some reason or another. He would much rather that it be that you left to be happy with me than to lose you in some catastrophic way."

Rose nodded and then yawned.

The Doctor let out a small chuckle. "Honesty is exhausting," he said as he yawned himself. "We should catch some sleep before we have to trap an alien tomorrow. Philip and I are taking turns watching over everyone. He'll wake us up if anything goes wrong."

The cot wasn't very comfortable, but all Rose wanted to do was sink into it as she lied back. "So we didn't lure it out yet?"

"Doesn't look like it," the Doctor admitted, unlacing his red trainers and scanning the room. "But we'll keep at it. If anything, we've probably peaked its interest."

"G'night Doctor."

"Goodnight, Rose," he said, scooting his cot closer to hers and reaching out for her hand. They fell asleep like that, their arms dangling between the cots with their fingers intertwined. It was a small comfort, but it was all Rose needed to be able to drift off into an uneasy slumber.


	25. Chapter 25

Waking up exactly three hours and sixteen minutes from then, the Doctor couldn't stand to try to sleep anymore. He wanted desperately to check on the TARDIS coral, but had to remind himself that his own words of warning were something about sticking together, not wandering off… He wouldn't be able to trust his senses since he wasn't chewing the peppermint gum anymore; which also meant that he was too dangerous to be left on his own – for the good of everyone else. _Huh…coming full circle then_, he thought. Instead, he had dialed up the sonic screwdriver to act as a monitor for the coral. He settled for being able to get readings from here. It was safe as houses back in that furnace room, for now.

He elected instead to find Philip and resume the watch. It was dawn now and he could see the sun starting to peek over the edge of the lake, chasing away the dusty gray of the early morning sky with rays of pink fire. As he sat on his cot, lacing up his shoes, he looked out the window and marveled at how serene this setting was. It really was such a shame that so many nefarious activities were taking place in such a beautiful resort. After running his sonic screwdriver over his clothes to straighten them out, he glanced over at the sleeping Rose Tyler. She was curled up in a tight ball underneath the thin blanket. Only her blonde hair was visible, spread out across the pillow. The Doctor, being him and not one for boundaries, ran the sonic screwdriver over her motionless form. Heart rate – normal. Breathing – normal. REM cycle – normal. Good, that was good. She was sound asleep with no signs of stress. He put an open tin of mints underneath her cot. It was a simple attempt at protection, but it was all he could do for the moment. He did need the Na'vorotti to sense their presence, but not while she slept.

The Doctor quietly searched for Philip through the main areas of the building, tip toeing around the sleeping humans. He finally found the director sitting at a large table that had been used for registration in the expansive entry way for the cabin. Philip was smoking a cigarette, and judging from the overflowing ashtray sitting next to him, had been chain smoking the entire night.

Philip coughed when the Doctor entered the room. "I'm starting to think this is a plot set up by my mother to get me to quit smoking," he said, stamping out the cigarette and picking up a stick of gum. The Doctor noticed that he had pieces of gum set out on the table with post-it notes next to them indicating what time to chew them at. "I've been timing exactly how long the peppermint in each stick lasts," Philip explained.

Oh, the Doctor knew he had liked Philip. "How brilliant!" he exclaimed, taking a seat across the table from him. Philip tried to offer the Doctor a stick. "Ah, no ta," the Doctor told him. "If I'm going to catch the Na'vorotti, I need to be able to get close to it."

"After what happened to Dr. O'Brien, I'm not sure whether you're brave or mad," said Philip, shaking his head.

Through the doorway, out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw Rose getting up from her cot. She waved sleepily to him and pointed to the door to the ladies room. The Doctor motioned for her to look under her cot. Rose found the tin of mints and popped one in her mouth. He grabbed Philip's wrist and tapped on his watch before pointing to Rose, indicating to her that he would be timing her. She rolled her eyes at him, but nodded and smiled before making her way to the restroom.

"The Na'vorotti didn't kill Dr. O'Brien and I'm fairly certain that it isn't behind the disappearances. That's why I came to find you while everyone else is still sleeping. We needed to talk privately. There is something else at play here and I need your trust because this situation has to be handled very delicately. Something brought the Na'vorotti here; or, rather, someone brought it here. Dr. O'Brien is the one that tipped me off, actually. But I can't do anything about it on my own. I'm going to need your help."

"But what can I do?" Philip asked.

"For now, we just need to keep an eye on everyone here. No one is allowed to leave this building, under any circumstances," the Doctor warned him. "Rose and I will go out there to trap this thing, but while we're doing that you need to watch everyone else."

"You think someone here is responsible," Philip said, letting out a deep breath as the realization clicked in his mind. "One of those people in that room did this, didn't they, Doctor Smith?"

The Doctor narrowed his gaze at Philip in a look of caution. "Yes. But don't voice this out loud. What happened to Dr. O'Brien was not an accident. His hand was forced. You do not want to be next on their list."

"You won't tell me who it is?" Philip asked.

"No," said the Doctor firmly. "Whoever it is, they're dangerous. They can't know they've been found out; especially since I have to leave you here with them until I've handled the Na'vorotti. Can't risk you trying something on your own, sorry."

"I thought you needed me to trust you."

"I do. This is where it comes in, I'm afraid."

Philip nodded. "Yeah, alright. I'll keep everyone close while you two get this thing."

"Hold on," the Doctor said suddenly, grabbing for Philip's wrist and looking at his watch. "Speaking of which…" He got up and started for the door to the ladies room. Rose had been in there far too long. No one was that fastidious about their hand washing, which meant there was trouble. Though, he hoped he was wrong…

Nope, not wrong. The door to the room was locked tight. The Doctor resisted the urge to shout her name and bang on it, knowing that not only would not do any good, but it would wake everyone else up in the process and he didn't need that. Looking over his shoulder to Philip, he put his index finger against his lips. He turned back to the door and used his sonic screwdriver to unlock it, pushing it open very carefully.

What he saw made the blood that pumped through his singular heart run cold. It was no longer a restroom, but a white corridor with gray tiled floors. On either side of the hallway, offices with little cubicles were visible through paned glass. The florescent overhead lighting flickered uneasily as the Doctor entered the room slowly and cautiously. There was a door at the end of the corridor mocking him, challenging him to open it to see what it held within. It was the only door that was not surrounded by glass so that he couldn't see inside – not even through the bullet holes that it was riddled with. Two words stood out on the white surface, spray painted in black, "**BAD WOLF**."

The Doctor's breath was coming quicker and quicker as he stared, dumbfounded, at those words. He knew where Rose was.

"What is it, Doctor Smith?" Philip asked from behind him, voice quaking in fear at the Doctor's reaction and the change of the room. "Where are we?"

"We're seeing Rose's hallucination. We're seeing what the Na'vorotti wanted her to see, which only means one thing," the Doctor said to Philip, turning to face him with wide, terrified eyes.

"What?" asked Philip.

"The Na'vorotti is strong now, so strong that peppermint won't work against it. It shouldn't have been able to find her, though. Someone was able to summon it here. I didn't think that was possible. I was so, so wrong."

"But where are we?" Philip practically begged him.

Dragging his long fingers down over his face in horror, the Doctor clenched his teeth and growled out into the cold, silent room, "Torchwood One."


	26. Chapter 26

"Where does this door go?" the Doctor asked Philip.

"How am I supposed to know? You said that this thing is making us all hallucinate," said Philip, following the Doctor through the corridor with trepidation.

"Yes, but we're still in the ladies' room. Think past the hallucination. There is a door here. It can't make us go into an entire room that isn't there."

"Oh. Then I suppose…" Philip gave it some thought. "Oh, it would be the door to the shower room."

"Alright," the Doctor said, feeling around the edges of the door. "We're going to go in, but remember that what you're seeing isn't real. Knowing that you cannot trust your senses right now will be the one thing that keeps you from actually believing in it. Do not let it get into your head." He still held his sonic screwdriver in his hand, but tried the doorknob first out of curiosity. The knob turned without protest. The Doctor sucked in air through his teeth. "Looks like it wants us to find her," he said. "That's probably not good."

Philip gulped, "Can that screwdriver thing kill it?"

"Ah, no," the Doctor said, edging the door open. "Opens things, fixes things, can find out information…I once used it to stop a rampaging elephant… but it's not a weapon."

"Can it stop that?" Philip asked, pointing into the room behind the Doctor. His face had gone deathly pale.

The Doctor turned to see the Torchwood One command center. He heard the echoing, heavy stomps before laying eyes on what Philip was seeing. A large metal figure walked out of view as it turned a corner. The Doctor only got a glimpse of it for a fleeting second, but there was absolutely no way to mistake what it was – Cybermen.

In an instant, another Cyberman stepped out from behind a wall and shot at both of them. The Doctor ducked on instinct and grabbed the collar of Philip's shirt, pulling him down as well. They were crouched low to the ground when the Cyberman fired again. But this time, the Doctor shook himself out it. _It's not real_, he yelled at himself inside his head and didn't flinch when the sound of the second shot reverberated around the room. _Like it would in a shower room_, the Doctor thought to himself and watched as the Cyberman faded away. In fact, the whole room seemed to fade and distort itself for just a moment, but he was able to see Rose's leg and trainer jutting out from behind a corner. He could fight this. The hallucination was getting weaker.

He turned to see Philip huddled on the ground, covering his head with his eyes closed tight. The Doctor reached for his arm.

"Philip, open your eyes. It's not real, remember? Don't trust what you see. Picture the room as it should be in your mind. There's no metal man and there's no gun shooting at you. We're in here alone."

Philip nodded and looked around as the Doctor helped him up off of the ground. "What was that?" he asked the Doctor.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," the Doctor said as he made his way over to where he saw Rose's trainer earlier. Now, she seemed to be completely obscured from his vision by a partition wall. He heard crying and was fairly certain that it was not part of the hallucination caused by the Na'vorotti. _Oh, what did it make her see?_

As they slowly rounded the corner, the Doctor got his answer and found himself almost wanting to turn away from the scene in front of him. _Of course_, he thought as he stared down at the painful situation playing out in front of him. _It would torture her this way, wouldn't it?_

Rose Tyler sat in a crumpled heap on the tiled floor. Her shoulders shook with the force of her quiet sobs as she rocked back and forth slightly. Her head was bowed low, her face completely obscured by her straight, blonde hair. The Doctor actually had a moment to think how unsafe this would be for her if she had been surrounded by Cybermen, but pushed that thought aside. It wasn't helping anyone. Besides, _she_ wasn't a robot devoid of human emotions. Was this vision meant to drive her mad? There was no clear motive for this, as far as he could tell. This hallucination had reduced her to a tear-stained pile on the floor, and for what purpose other than to torment?

The Doctor wanted to approach her, to comfort her, but knew that it had to be done delicately as to not send her into some sort of shock. Before he could start forward, Philip touched his arm.

"What is she holding?" he asked the Doctor quietly.

"You don't see it?" the Doctor questioned him. "That's good, actually. Very good. It means that you're shutting it out. Don't try to see what it is. It's nothing, remember? She isn't actually holding anything."

The Doctor, on the other hand, could see what she was crying over quite clearly. He knew it wasn't real, but the emotions that ran through him from seeing his Rose this way had an effect on him despite his knowledge that this was a hallucination. One doesn't usually see the moments after one's own death on a regular basis. And that was exactly what he was witnessing. Cradled in Rose's lap was his own body. His legs were splayed out at grotesquely awkward angles. The chest where his single heart should have been beating was now silent and motionless. The jaw that was always wagging with a quick quip was slack, never to form another word.

_Breathe_, he told himself as he felt his human body betraying his intellect. The sadness, and yes…there it was…anger, that was welling up inside him felt like it was being sucked out through his pores into the air itself. The sight of Rose sobbing over his corpse was maddening. He had to shut it out! The Doctor took a deep breath through his nose and slowly blew out the air, gaining control over himself in the process. In his mind, he pictured the body in her arms disappearing and as he did so, it started to lose focus and blink out of existence. His hands shook as he raised them to the sides of his head and pressed his fingers to his own temples. He found the creature's presence there, awaiting proper entry, and he threw every happy memory and feeling that he had at it. He had barely begun to remember Donna interrogating an Ood on why he assumed she was single when he felt the connection break and the Na'vorotti scream out an awful sound and then fade away.

Oh, now this was just brilliant!

Smiling an almost maniacal grin, the Doctor opened his eyes and found that the room had become a regular ol' shower room again. He _could_ do it! He would fight this creature at its own game. It had never come across the likes of him before, with his superior Time Lord mind and all. Telepathy and complete control of all faucets of his brain would work to his advantage. He just had to maintain his emotions – think the right things at the exact right time. Over nine hundred years of memories to draw on. Over nine hundred years of feelings to drudge up. The Na'vorotti wouldn't know how to handle it. He could throw whatever he wanted at the creature at any given time. He just couldn't allow his mind to wander…

"Rose," the Doctor said, edging closer to her with his hand up in surrender. "Rose, can you hear me?"

She looked up at him, bright brown eyes unfocused and shining with tears. "I tried to get to you," she choked out. "I yelled your name over and over but you kept running. I couldn't stop you. You ran towards the Cybermen and…and…"

"Shh," he said, kneeling down next to her but being careful not to touch her. He noticed that she still had the peppermint in her mouth. Well, so much for that. "I'm fine, see?"

Rose shook her head and looked back down to her lap. She made a small motion with her hand and it broke his heart to know that it resembled running her fingers through his hair and down his face. "You're not fine. You're dead. You can't regenerate anymore. I was so afraid of this. I always knew that you'd forget that part and go running into danger not thinkin' of the consequences. It's different now. You were human."

"Rose, I need you to look at me," the Doctor told her. She complied, blinking uncertainly as if she was trying to get a handle on what she was seeing. "I'm not dead; far from it, in fact. Do you know where we are?"

"Torchwood," she answered automatically.

"No," he corrected her kindly. "We're at Carter Cabins in 1974. The TARDIS coral stranded us here and there's an alien that's making you hallucinate. Remember, Rose. Remember the Na'vorotti. You're in the locker room of the main cabin here at the resort. You're not in the Torchwood facility. There are no Cybermen. And I didn't die. I'm right here in front of you."

"But…" she began to protest.

The Doctor interrupted her, "Look, there's Philip. Remember good ol' Philip? He can't be at Torchwood, can he? We're still in 1974. Please believe me. Trust me."

Shaking her head as if to clear it, Rose pushed herself away from him and skidded on her bum until she backed herself against a bench. Okay, so he needed to try a bit harder…

"Rose, can you feel my hand?" he asked her as he reached out and grabbed her fingers. She nodded. "Good. How can I hold your hand if I'm dead?"

She stared down at where their hands met and he took the opportunity to help her off the floor and sit her down on the bench.

"No!" she almost shouted at him frantically. "No, no, no. I saw it. I saw you get shot. I couldn't even get over to you before you died!"

"Alright," he said aloud to no one in particular, "the Na'vorotti is feasting on her sadness. It's got her completely immersed in this hallucination. She needs…what? What?" The Doctor ran his hand through his hair as he stared at his trembling companion. _Wait. She's a bit more than my companion now, isn't she? _he thought. "She needs to fight it off – just like I could. Happy; she needs to be happy! Endorphins… serotonin…I've got it!"

Without warning, he shot a hand out and cupped the back of her head, pulling her face to his. Rose's eyes gave him a sharp look of recognition and then widened in shock before he crushed his lips to hers. But there was no faltering on her part. The moment he kissed her, she didn't pull away. On the contrary, she closed her eyes and automatically returned his kiss. He studied her face for a moment before becoming satisfied that it was working and allowing himself a brief sense of triumph as he shut his own eyelids and decided to simply enjoy the moment.

This was, quite possibly, the best monster thwarting idea that he had ever come up with. It was also distracting. Terribly…terribly distracting. He wasn't entirely expecting her reaction and found himself getting caught up in it all when Rose grabbed his tie and pulled him closer to her.

He did this for a reason, didn't he? What was that again? Try as he might, he couldn't quite remember; not when Rose Tyler was running her fingernails gently over his scalp and snogging him within an inch of his sanity. They hadn't actually had a proper kiss in a month and it was all still a little disorienting to him. Shameful, yes; he really should be able to cope with these things better. But he was only human now, he supposed and shouldn't be held accountable for falling victim to her charms, or for the fact that his knees had gone all wobbly. Luckily for him, they were sitting down this time. Where were they again?

_Right! _He needed to get a hold of himself. The Doctor had meant for Rose to be the one to let her guard down, just like before when his ninth self had to get her to open up somehow for him to be able to take the time vortex energy from her. He just needed to get inside her mind a tiny, tiny bit. Honestly, it was more like dancing around the edges of her mind – not even stepping all the way inside. He just needed to sense…

Ah, there it was. He could feel the presence of the Na'vorotti. The severe change in the chemical reactions in her brain had pushed the creature further out, but not all the way. The Doctor shoved out with his mind, attacking the Na'vorotti with every happy memory of the two of them that he had on file. The Na'vorotti left quickly and quietly, slipping out of his reach. It was gone. _Well, that was a little too easy_… he thought.

Unfortunately for him, the Doctor didn't have time to ponder this before he could almost feel the final centimeters (millimeters, maybe) of his sanity fall away as he realized that he was wrapping his arm around Rose's waist. There was something else that he needed to be paying attention to. But she smelled like peppermint and fit against him so well…

_Oh! Falling!_ They were falling over and off of the narrow bench.

"Ow!" They both gasped out after tumbling onto the floor.

The Doctor pulled away from her and then smirked impishly when he realized that it had worked. "Hello," he said happily.

"Hi," Rose responded, a little dazed. She took a look at her surroundings and then laughed. "Smooth move," she teased, referring to the tangled heap that they had become on the ground.

"Oi, just a little crash landing. I was plenty smooth before that," he protested.

"Crash landing," she mused. "Guess that shouldn't surprise me, huh?"

Before the Doctor could retort, they heard someone clear his throat from above them. That's when the Doctor realized that he was still lying on top of Rose on the floor of a locker room. He snapped his head up to see Philip staring up at the ceiling where he had left him.

"Is everything sorted?" Philip asked, glancing uncomfortably over to them.

The Doctor gave him an abashed smile and got up from the ground, helping Rose to her feet in the process. "Oh, yes. All clear," he said, tugging on his ear out of embarrassment. "Well, when I say 'clear'…maybe not crystal clear, exactly. Maybe more foggy than that; misty…maybe that's the word I'm looking for. It's misty. Less like crystal and more like frosted glass. Oh, sea glass. Yep, that's it. It's all sea glass. And when I say 'sea glass'…" He stopped when he caught Rose and Philip staring at him and cleared his throat loudly.

"You're babbling," Rose leaned over and whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

"Yes, yes I am," he agreed. "But I just saved you by ripping a page right out of the Prince Charming Handbook, Snow White. So don't I get a little leeway on eloquence here?"

"Alright," Philip said, shaking off the awkwardness, "so what's next?"

"Glad you asked, Philip," the Doctor said, slipping back into his usual swagger. "That's not the only fairy tale I'm stealing moves from. I found that I can somewhat combat the Na'vorotti by using my memories; specifically, by forcing myself to feel a certain way. Still in possession of a Time Lord mind, you know."

"Whaddya mean?" asked Rose, smoothing down her hair that he had accidentally mussed.

"Happy thoughts," the Doctor said, tapping on the side of his head. "Try thinking happy thoughts. I'll prepare the TARDIS coral and then we'll lure it out. When the coral is ready to trap it, I should be able to gain control of myself and then BAM! Knock the Na'vorotti senseless and it's finished. Kaput!"

"So what are we waitin' for?" Rose asked, grinning from ear to ear. "Let's go catch this thing. I'm tired of having my mind messed with."

The Doctor opened his mouth to agree with her sentiment, but just then, his sonic screwdriver started to buzz in his suit jacket like it would jump right out of his pocket. His face fell and he whipped it out, getting a close look at the readings on it. "Uh oh," he said.

"I don't like it when you say that," she said, eyes growing wide.

"I was wondering why the Na'vorotti gave up so easily when I tried to shove it from your mind," he explained.

"You didn't mention that before," Rose noted.

"I was a bit busy," the Doctor countered, as he rubbed the back of his neck. "And it wanted me busy. This was all an elaborate ploy to keep us here. It wasn't after you at all. This was a distraction."

"From what?" Philip asked.

"The coral!" the Doctor yelled as he raced out of the room. "C'mon! Run!"

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**_Just a bit of fluff, but I found it fun. Again, thank you so so so so much to everyone reading...and reviewing...and following! It really makes my time spent on this story feel valuable. _**

**_And it gives me an excuse to watch more Doctor Who and listen to more Doctor Who audio books. For anyone who hasn't jumped on that bandwagon - it's super addicting and so much fun. I love listening to David Tennant reading Doctor Who books while my fiance and I make dinner or while I'm getting ready for work. I'd listen to that man read the dictionary! He has Mickey's voice down so well it's scary. I just listened to The Feast of the Drowned and there were a couple parts where I had to pause it and go, "Awww!" because of the Doctor and Rose. _**

**_Anyway...now I'm rambling. Happy reading!_**


	27. Chapter 27

Rose grabbed Philip's arm and half drug him out of the locker room after the Doctor. She tried to keep up with him as he dashed through the large room where everyone was sleeping, navigating through the cots like it was an obstacle course. He rolled over an empty bed before charging through the door to the furnace room, sending pillows and blankets sprawling across the floor.

"What's going on?" she heard William say as she raced by him and Sabrina.

"No time to explain," she shouted out. "Trouble. Big trouble!"

They reached the door to the furnace room just in time for the Doctor to come barreling back out it, looking more furious than Rose had ever seen him.

"It's gone," he said frantically and began to scan the room with an increasing frenzy. He then grabbed the pillow that he had knocked off of an empty cot and tossed it back onto the bed. "And I have a good idea who has it."

"Where'd they take it?" Rose asked him, trying to remember who was sleeping on that cot.

The Doctor ran to the window and looked outside while Rose started to put together the pieces. She stared at that cot until the realization slowly crept over her. The cot next to it was empty too…

"Outside!" the Doctor yelled over to Rose and then made a straight shot for the door. "The lake!"

"Oh my God," Rose said aloud as she jerked herself out of her shock. She glanced over to Philip to see him coming to the conclusion that she was and then they both took off after the Doctor.

Halfway to the lake, Philip stopped and leaned over with his hands on his knees. "Go on," he gasped. "Not used to smoking that much. Keep on without me." He waved Rose on and she nodded to him.

She reached the lake just in time to see the Doctor, hands held up and spread wide, making his way slowly to the figure standing at the end of the pier.

August Harrison was holding the TARDIS coral in his hand over the edge of the water. He didn't look like a villain beaming with pride at his evil plan coming full circle. As a matter of fact, he looked desperate and frightened.

Rose skidded to a halt beside the Doctor on the wooden boards of the pier and the Doctor held out his arm to signal to her to stay back.

"Don't come any closer or I'll chuck it right in!" August shouted to them. He was breathless and panting, staring back at them with terrified eyes.

"You don't have to do this," the Doctor told him, trying to take a tentative step forward.

"I said to stay back!" yelled August as his hand shook the coral over the lake.

"August," the Doctor said calmly, "what's your real name? Can you tell me? Should I keep calling you August?" When the man didn't reply, the Doctor continued. "Alright, then. Look, August, I know what's going on and it isn't too late. You can stop. You can help us."

"No, I can't!" August said fiercely. "You don't understand. This can't get out! I'll be finished!"

"But I'm the Doctor and I can help you," said the Doctor, making his first successful step. "That's what I do, August. I help people."

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," August blurted out. "It was just research."

"I know," the Doctor reassured him. He turned back to Rose and swallowed hard. What did he need her to do?

"What research?" Rose asked. "Can you come back over here and tell us about it?"

"I have to clean it all up. I have to contain it," August sputtered.

"August here is not human, are you?" the Doctor asked him, taking another slow step. "You're wearing some sort of brilliant cloaking device. It's very clever. Even fooled me and that's not easy to do. Where are you from?"

"Far away," was all August told them.

"And you were sent here to do research on the Na'vorotti – the creature, weren't you? But why?"

"We found it," August said, breathing finally slowing down. "It was entirely by accident. We didn't know what it did exactly. We just knew that it made people turn on each other. There was an excavation team that turned it up on an abandoned ship that drifted into our orbit," he paused and gulped. "They all went mad before they returned home."

"You're a scientist, yeah?" Rose asked, trying to keep him talking. "So you brought this thing here?"

"The creature was so weak, it was easy to contain. We didn't know that it wasn't at full strength. We studied it and thought we could use it."

"For what?" Rose questioned. "What are you doing on Earth?"

August looked calm, but very somber. "My planet has been in a civil war for thousands of years. We thought we could use it as a weapon," he explained. He seemed ashamed of this. "We needed to test it out somewhere that it wouldn't harm our populace. I was under orders."

"So you came here." the Doctor filled in for him.

"Your planet has seen so much war. We didn't think it would make a difference. You're always trying to kill each other."

"But this isn't a battleground," said Rose. "Why here? Why a marriage counseling resort?"

"Isn't it obvious?" the Doctor asked her with a dark look in his eyes as he raised his chin. "They wanted to make sure that it could drive apart people who were more devoted to each other than soldiers are. Marriage is a tight bond and they wanted to see if the Na'vorotti could break that."

August nodded. "We needed to know what it was capable of."

"Ah, but you got a little in over your head, didn't you?" the Doctor mused. "What you didn't know was that the Na'vorotti played you like a fiddle. It let you capture it. All that time that you spent studying it in captivity was just a game for it. It wanted you to trust that you could control it, that's why it let you know about its slight aversion to peppermint. It wanted you to release it so that it could feed and gain strength. You didn't realize how clever the Na'vorotti was. And it got out of hand, didn't it?"

"We thought that the effects would only last while the creature was feeding on someone. I've been studying it here for years, changing my appearance each time. We didn't know that those people last month would go that insane after leaving here. No one else did. I didn't realize that it was getting stronger. I tried to tell my superiors, believe me. They didn't care. They wanted me to compile more data. Only this time, they said that we couldn't allow any human to leave after being exposed."

"All those missing people," Rose gasped.

"They're safe," August reassured them. "I've got them contained for testing."

"And Dr. O'Brien?" Rose asked. "He wasn't very safe, was he?"

"Dr. O'Brien was just an accident, wasn't he?" asked the Doctor. "He wasn't meant to die. He was your inside man."

"Yeah." August nodded. "He was human. We paid him off to help."

"But he had a change of heart and had to be taken out," the Doctor ventured a guess.

"No!" August shouted at him, becoming erratic again. "He was my friend!"

"Then why did you kill him?" asked Rose, the words flying out of her mouth before she could stop them.

"The creature…this Na'vorotti… it got to him. He was going mad and I couldn't stop it from tormenting him. He lost his wife and child in a fire years ago and… I couldn't protect him from it. My superiors wouldn't allow it. He became a liability. He even severed my contact with my planet, but not before I was given orders to make sure that he didn't leave here." August paced at the end of the pier, becoming more and more distraught. Tears started to run down his face and Rose almost felt sorry for him. That is, until he started talking again. "I gave him the gun and sent the creature to his office."

"And you were going to pin the disappearances on him," the Doctor said. "I saw the suicide note in his office where he admitted to killing everyone. Since I knew that he hadn't, I realized that Dr. O'Brien couldn't have been behind it all. He was the scapegoat. But I felt strange in that office. The energy that the Na'vorotti had sucked from him was still clinging in the air and even though I was upset that Dr. O'Brien was dead, I also felt like something was waiting in there, wanting me to feel worse. And, of course, the entire office smelled like those peppermints that you and Emily had earlier. It was the peppermint that really tipped me off. Now, other than you and Emily, who else knows about this?"

"Emily has nothing to do with this. She's a friend of Dr. O'Brien's that we hired to play the part of my wife. She doesn't know anything. I came alone. That's why I can't do this. I can't handle all this on my own. I'm not a soldier; I'm a scientist. How was I supposed to get the creature and all these people back to my planet on my own?"

"August, do you know what you're holding in your hand?" the Doctor asked him.

He shook his head. "All I know is that I heard you say that you could use it on the creature."

"That is a very special piece of coral that I can use to trap the Na'vorotti. But I can't help you if you don't give it to me. I'm the only one who knows how to use it. Please, let me help," the Doctor begged him.

"You can't help me!" August said. "You don't understand. My son is a soldier. They have him at the front until I come back with the research. He'll die in battle if I don't follow orders. You have no idea what my planet is like!"

"I do. Believe me, I do," the Doctor implored him. "My planet was lost in a great war. I understand about endless fighting. I understand about those in power doing whatever they want to succeed, no matter the cost. I understand about following orders and I chose not to. I stood up to them and so can you."

"And what happened to those you loved?" August asked him. "What were the consequences of you not following orders?"

The Doctor was silent. His face became a hard mask, but his dark eyes were glowing with emotion.

"That's what I thought," August said sadly. He turned his back to them and pulled back his arm, throwing the coral as far as he could into the center of the lake.

"No!" Rose involuntarily shouted out as the TARDIS coral landed in the water with a soft "plunk."

Lowering his head, the Doctor let out a long breath. "You shouldn't have done that," he said to August.

The alien that stood in front of them clearly had not thought this through and was now trembling with adrenaline, eyes darting quickly between the Doctor and Rose. He looked like he was expecting them to charge him. When this did not happen, August seemed uncertain. He had nowhere to go.

"Alright, let's bring it in," Rose heard Philip say from behind her. "Mr. Harrison, if you would be so kind." She turned to see Philip holding a handgun at August. William was at his side with a length of rope.

The Doctor held up his hand and started to protest, but August gave a long sigh of defeat and walked towards them, allowing himself to be restrained.

"They'll kill my son," August whispered to the Doctor as William tied his hands behind his back.

"I'm going to see what I can do about that," the Doctor told him sincerely.

"What do we do with him?" William asked, securing the knot and looking up at the Doctor.

"Take him back to the main building. We'll figure something out," the Doctor said. Then he walked over to Philip. "Philip, give me the gun."

"He killed Dr. O'Brien," Philip said. His hand holding the gun was shaking. Rose wagered that he had never fired one before. She also guessed that it was the gun that had killed Dr. O'Brien and that's why Philip had let her go on ahead.

"I know," the Doctor said. "But we need to find out where he's keeping the others. Please give me the gun. It isn't safe to have it around with the Na'vorotti here. " Philip made no attempt to move as the Doctor slowly reached out and took the gun from his hand. The director looked equal parts stunned and relieved when the gun was out of his grasp. "That's better," said the Doctor before tossing the handgun into the lake with disgust.

_But what are we going to do to trap the __Na'vorotti now that the TARDIS coral is at the bottom of the lake?_ Rose wondered.

"Oh, that's easy," the Doctor said to her. "I'll just have to go in and get it."

"You're going to do what?" she asked, horrified at his reply. _Wait. His reply to what?_ "How did you know that?"

"Know what?" he asked, putting his hands in his pockets and turning from her. "So you two will escort Mr. Harrison here back to the main building and then Rose and I will work on trapping this thing. Don't let him out of your sight and keep him away from the others. We don't need a panic. It'll draw the Na'vorotti to you and I need it to come find us. Understand?"

William nodded. "We'll sneak him in the back through the kitchen. Anything else you need us to do, Doctor?"

"Nope. Just sit tight until we get back."

The question Rose knew that both William and Philip were wondering hung in the air, unasked. _"What if you don't come back?"_

"Alright," was all William said before shaking his head at them and helping August to his feet.

"You're going in the lake?" Philip asked the Doctor.

"Yup."

"Is that safe?"

"Probably not," the Doctor admitted.

_What if you hallucinate while you're down there?_ Rose wanted to ask, but decided that it wasn't going to change his mind.

"I'll be fine," the Doctor said flippantly. "And you'll be up here should anything happen. Honestly, Rose, worrying isn't helping."

Now they were all staring at him.

"How are you doing that?" she pressed, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Wot?" he asked defensively. His voice was a bit higher than usual.

_Means he's hiding something._

"I am not," he argued. "Oh…that."

"What's going on?" William asked, looking from Rose to the Doctor with utter confusion.

"Well," the Doctor drew out, grimacing, "it's just a little mental link. Precaution, actually. I'm shielding you – mentally, anyway. I need the Na'vorotti to sense us at the exact right time so I'm sort of channeling all your thoughts and emotions through me. I have better control on what is being projected. Took the liberty while I pulled you out of the hallucination. Sorry."

"You're in my head?" Rose asked, trying not to become upset, but failing just a little. "That's a pretty big liberty."

Philip, William, and even August were now staring at them uncomfortably, unsure of what to do while the Doctor tugged on his ear. "Ah, I'm not really so much as in your head as just temporarily secured to your mind."

"What's the difference?" she asked.

"I can't really read your thoughts. Could if I tried, but I'm not. I promise. I can only get a sense of what you're thinking – like being really intuitive," he rationed with her, flashing a hopeful grin.

Rose sighed. "We're going to need to have a talk about boundaries when our lives aren't in danger, Doctor."

"Right. Yes. We'll do just that," he promised.

"I'd feel more comfortable if we were here while you were in the lake," William offered, staring at them as if they were the aliens. Well… to be fair, only one of them was. "He's not going anywhere and if anything should happen…"

"Fine, fine," the Doctor agreed. "Now, if you'll excuse me…"He removed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. When he handed his jacket to Rose, she was half expecting another kiss from the look in his eyes. The Doctor's face broke into a cocky grin.

"What?" she asked him.

"There'll be time for that later; not that it isn't a tempting thought," he teased, winking at her and tapping the side of her head.

"Oh, that's so not playin' fair," she lamented.

The Doctor held his sonic screwdriver in his teeth, nodded at all of them, and then walked to the end of the pier. Rose held her breath and watched him dive into the water. She began counting the seconds…

Before she got very far, however, a thunderous "boom" sounded from the lake, causing a ripple effect on the surface. A bright blue light illuminated the center of the water for a brief moment, and then it was gone.

"Doctor!" Rose shouted and began to run forward before Philip grabbed her arm.

"Wait, Rose! I'll go with you. You can't just go jumping in after him."

"The hell I can't," she said, jerking away from him and running forward. The water was fairly clear for a lake and she couldn't see the Doctor anywhere. She didn't know how, but she knew it wasn't a trick. He had just disappeared.

"I'm afraid no one is going anywhere," they heard a female voice say from behind them.

They all turned to see Emily Harrison pointing a gun at them. Where were all these guns coming from?

"What are you doing?" Philip asked her.

"Untie my colleague and follow me, please," she said as a slow smile crept across her pretty face.

"You lied to us. You said she was human," Rose accused August as William reluctantly began to free him.

"Yes I did," he admitted. "I'm very sorry about all this. But I can't afford to have you all get away. We're under orders."

"I'm not leaving him!" Rose yelled, backing away from them.

Emily grabbed Philip by the back of his shirt and pointed the gun to his head. "You're coming with us or I'll kill this one."

Rose felt helpless. The wheels were spinning in her mind as she tried to think of a plan. But in her shock, she couldn't come up with anything. That's when August took the opportunity to step up from behind her and hold a cloth over her nose and mouth.

_Should have expected that_, she thought.

"I am sorry," he said weakly as her vision swam. She fought to keep her eyes open, but it wasn't working. Rose stumbled and William rushed forward to catch her.

"We'll find him. It'll be alright," William whispered to her as she took one final, pleading look back to the lake before it all went black.


	28. Chapter 28

When she woke up, Rose was not at all surprised to find herself aboard a spaceship, surrounded by lab equipment and blinking lights. She was, however, very angry. Her hands, feet, and waist were secured against the wall by metal bonds. After struggling for a bit, she resigned herself to the fact that it was no use.

"Save your strength," she heard a voice say from beside her and turned her head to find William and Philip strapped next to her in similar situations.

"Are we still on Earth?" she asked, fearing the worst.

"Yeah," Philip said. "They haven't taken off yet. Said that they need to bring the creature with."

"Alright, that's a start," she said, nodding her aching head. "Where is everyone else?"

Philip sighed and jerked his head in the direction that William was already staring in. Rose blinked a couple of times, trying to right her still blurry vision and took note of the wall to their right. It looked like there were yellow glass pods lined up in rows. She squinted and could make out shadowy outlines inside the glass. After concentrating on the nearest one, she clearly saw Sabrina's soft, brown curls on one of the figures inside.

"Oh my God," she gasped. "I'm so sorry," she said to William.

"She's alright," he said quickly. "They told me that she's alright. They've been put under for the trip. They're going to do the same to us soon, though…after the testing."

"We've got to get out of here before that," Rose told them. "Have either of you heard anything about…" She trailed off and bit her lip uneasily, not really sure she wanted an answer to that question.

"No," Philip answered her, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "We haven't heard anything about him."

"Maybe that's a good thing," William offered hopefully.

"Maybe…" Rose agreed. She wasn't really sure at the moment. Never did know with him. But no news wasn't bad news either, she figured.

"Good, you're awake," Emily said, entering the room from a door to their left. _An exit?_ Rose wondered. She still looked like Emily, but now she was wearing a lab coat and pushing a cart full of medical equipment. Rose desperately wanted to know what she really looked like. Maybe she could figure out a weakness… "We're going to begin examinations now. We need to do this medical testing for our research. I'm particularly interested in you," she said to Rose, smiling that awful, cheerful smile.

"And why is that?" Rose asked her. She needed to stall.

"The creature really liked you," Emily explained, holding up a syringe and checking the contents. "I'm curious to find out why. I'd actually really like to test the creature's effect on you in a controlled environment once we're able to capture it, but August thinks that it would be too dangerous and he's anxious to get home quickly. You understand?"

"Yeah," Rose agreed sarcastically. _Oh, but wait. Maybe that would delay take off_… "I'll volunteer, though," Rose offered. "If you wanna test it out on me. I'll cooperate, promise."

"And why would you do that?" Emily asked her suspiciously.

"I'm curious myself," Rose lied. "I'd like to know what is so special about me."

Emily eyed her warily. "Hmm, we'll see. In the meantime, I think I'll start with you," she said to Philip and walked closer to him, holding the syringe. He took a deep breath and tried to strain away from her.

"What's that?" Rose asked, nodding to the syringe. "What are you goin' to do to him?"

"It isn't dangerous," Emily explained, rolling her eyes. "It's just a mild sedative to make sure that you don't try to escape. No side effects on humans what-so-ever." She pulled Philip's sleeve up and jabbed the needle in his arm.

As Philip's head lulled, Rose saw Emily set the syringe back on the cart next to a row of others that looked exactly the same. _Sedative, huh?_ She thought to herself, trying not to smile.


	29. Chapter 29

"Pbbbbbttt!" The Doctor spat out lake water as he found himself lying on the pier, clutching the TARDIS coral in one hand and his sonic screwdriver in the other. Wait. How did he get on the pier? And why was it dark out now?

He took a look up at the sky and saw the stars shining down on him. _Yep, definitely night._ How many hours had he lost? What had happened?

Thinking back on it, he tried to remember what happened. He had jumped in the lake, couldn't find the coral… looked and looked, searched and searched. _Ah, yes._ Then it all went black and he knew the Na'vorotti was there, waiting for him. It took away all of his senses, trying to drown him. He had tried to fight back, but he was losing oxygen. _Ridiculous human body_, he thought. Then there was this bright, blue light and he knew he was being pulled towards something. He had thought about Rose, locking onto her thoughts. She was afraid…

Now he was here and it was night. But why…?

"Oh, oh!" he said, jumping up and shaking the water off of himself. "You did it!" he enthused, speaking to the coral in his hand. "Acting on instinct! Pulling me away from the Na'vorotti! I thought about Rose and that's what kept me here…but you, you beautiful little rock, helped me escape!" He kissed the coral. "Well, that was brilliant. Don't do it again, mind you. But, really, really brilliant!"

The Doctor ran his sonic screwdriver over the coral. Still functioning! It lost a little energy, but not much. There was still a chance…

_I've just got to trick the Na'vorotti. Get it close and then, with some impressive mental manipulation on my part, if I can send signals to the coral then hopefully it will pick up on what I need it to do,_ he thought, running his hand through his hair and making it stand on end. _Now, how to lure it out?_

As if on cue, the Doctor then heard a sound that made him take a sharp intake of breath. _Again, a little too easy, _he mused as he made his way off of the pier and towards the forest. Towards the source of the sound… Towards the roar of the TARDIS engines. He only stopped to pick up his jacket that was lying in the grass off the pier. The Doctor knew Rose would not have left this on the ground and he started to worry. The mental link that he had used with her earlier had broken when the coral had snapped him forward in time, so he couldn't get a read on her. He rationed with himself that he would figure that out as soon as he knew the Na'vorotti was locked safely away. This would be his only chance.

He walked a little ways into the forest, becoming acutely aware that it was becoming darker and darker with each step into the blanket of trees. He looked up to see that he could no longer make out any stars through the leaves and pulled out his sonic screwdriver to use as a torch.

The creature wanted him isolated and lost. And what better form to take to draw a Time Lord in like a fly to honey than his TARDIS? There it was, that blue box, parked between the trees. It was still emitting its signature sound and the Doctor felt the coral in his hand pulse a bit in recognition.

"It's not real," he whispered to the coral, sadly. "But I know how you feel."

He stopped walking in order to take in his surroundings before continuing towards the hallucination of the TARDIS. Mist had begun to swirl around him, clouding his vision from everything in the forest except for the TARDIS in front of him.

"C'mon," the Doctor practically snarled at it, "tea time. Come and get it."


	30. Chapter 30

Philip and William were both very brave throughout the examinations. It was all pretty standard stuff, as far as Rose could tell. Emily didn't want to hurt them. She was very calm and professional about things, actually. She took their temperatures, blood pressure, ran some scans, etc.

And all the while, Rose kept her talking. That's all she could do. It was what the Doctor would do.

"How is August going to trap the creature?" she asked her captor while Emily hooked a monitor up to a sedated William's arm and jotted down some notes.

"We have a device that emits a sort of energy signature that it is attracted to," Emily explained without interest. "It is how we got it here in the first place."

"So he's out there by himself?"

"August can handle things just fine," she said, dismissing the notion that he wasn't safe.

"He didn't seem that way earlier," Rose noted, still taking in all her surroundings; forming a plan.

"He's stressed. The situation is…personal for him."

"Because of his son, yeah? It doesn't sound like your planet is all that friendly."

"It isn't," Emily said, giving Rose a meaningful look. "Can you even imagine a war that lasts thousands of years? We've been fighting so long…"

"So why do all this? Why take orders from people who just want to win, no matter the cost?"

"August isn't the only one with family back home," was all Emily said before turning around and resuming her examination on William.

"What did they threaten you with?"

"My… husband was on the team that found the creature," Emily explained, her voice hitching just a little. "He needs medical care now in order to get better. I need to return with this research so they will provide it."

"I'm sorry," Rose said, actually feeling sympathy for Emily.

Emily shrugged. "Maybe they'll be able to help him once we know the effects of the creature better."

"No one should have been exposed to it," said Rose. "Do you agree with turning this thing into a weapon?"

"It really doesn't matter to me what they choose to do with it once we take it back," Emily said, wrapping up the examination. "I just want him to get better."

"I understand," Rose told her as she watched Emily help William walk groggily back to his restraints. Then, Emily came towards her with the syringe. "You don't have to sedate me," Rose said. "I'll comply. Won't it be easier to test me later with the creature if I'm not sedated?"

Emily smiled at her. "I'm not that stupid."

"You can use it if I cause any trouble," Rose offered. "I have a pretty big phobia about not knowing what's goin' on around me. I'll be good."

Sighing, Emily put the syringe back on the cart. "I understand about that," she said, giving in. "And, you're right, it will be much easier to get the research I need from the study if you're in control of yourself around the creature." As she began undoing Rose's bonds, she warned her, "But if you try anything…"

"I won't," Rose protested. She even hopped down from the wall and walked over to the examination table without so much as a defiant blink.

Her pulse was taken and then Emily started to hook her up to various monitors. "This isn't personal, you understand?" she asked Rose as she wrote in her notebook. "I really am just following orders. We don't have another choice. It's a shame, really. I like Earth. I think my mate would like it as well. Once he's better, I want to see if I can get us both off our planet. I was thinking about coming back here…"

"You know," Rose started to tell her, "I work for an organization that deals with interactions with aliens. If he's as brilliant as you are, then I bet that I could get you both on at Torchwood. My friend, the Doctor, could help you and August get away. That's what we do. We could save your husband and August's family and get you back here. But we can't do that if I'm trapped on another planet. You should let us help you."

"That's sweet," Emily said sadly. "But you don't understand my planet. Things don't work that way and it's easier said than done. I'm afraid I cannot allow you to have that option."

"Too bad," Rose sighed. Suddenly, she jerked up and pushed Emily away from her with all her might, sending the scientist flying into a table full of empty beakers.

Before Emily could regain her balance, Rose grabbed for a syringe from the cart and scrambled away from her. She held up the needle like a weapon and stared back at Emily, daring her to make the first move.

"You can't escape," Emily hissed with determination. "You have no idea what I'd lose if you do."

"You have a choice," Rose told her. "Let us help you or I'll have to stop you."

Emily laughed and then charged at Rose. The world around her seemed to move in slow motion as she stumbled back and caught herself on one of the pods. The two women struggled in vain. Emily held Rose's wrist away from her as Rose tried to force the syringe into her arm. She was stronger than Rose had anticipated.

Just as Rose was able to push Emily back a tiny bit and get the syringe to break her skin, Emily jerked forward and pressed a button behind them. Rose fell backwards into the pod as Emily stared in shock at the needle sticking out of her arm. The last thing Rose saw before the doors to the pod shut were Emily's eyes closing as she fell to the floor. Then, the chamber was pumped full of a choking gas and Rose found herself drifting off into unconsciousness for the second time that day.


	31. Chapter 31

The Doctor had expected something to emerge from the TARDIS, but nothing happened. It just sat there. How anticlimactic…

"S'pose it's waiting for me to do something," he mumbled to the coral in his hand. "Like, oh…I dunno, go inside it. Well, this is just wizard." He sighed, suddenly missing Donna Noble. "Nope, nope, nope," he said, hitting himself in the head with the palm of his hand. "Gotta control my thoughts. Alright then, in we go…"

He stuck the piece of coral into the pocket of his jacket and stood in front of the TARDIS. Again, nothing happened.

"You're kidding me…" he muttered, rolling his eyes. "Fine, fine. I'll play along."

The Doctor held up his hand and snapped his fingers. The doors opened to reveal…the interior of the TARDIS. There was nothing ominous about it at all. The warm glow illuminated the forest as the Doctor stood stoic in the light. He could hear the familiar hum coming from inside and it tugged at his only heart. Time and relative dimension in space… it felt like home and it hurt.

"Oh, so this is what you're after," he said, sighing. "You want me to reminisce? How incredibly subtle of you."

"What are you doing out there?" he heard an all too familiar voice call from inside. "Doctor? Helloooooo? C'mon. Shouldn't we be off?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head. It was all a bit cruel. When he opened them, Donna stood in the doorway to the TARDIS. Her red hair was backlit with a halo of light from the inside. She had her hands on hips, pushing her brown coat back behind her. Her eyes were inquisitive, questioning.

"Well? Have ya been struck deaf? I'm bloody bored in this forest. There's nothing here. Why'd we come here when there's nothing here? Let's find somewhere…I dunno…maybe a planet with really good pizza. I'm craving pizza. Whaddya think?"

Swallowing thickly, the Doctor could no longer remember why he was standing in the middle of a forest. He just knew that looking at Donna made him sad as if he didn't think he was ever going to see her again.

"Oi! Earth to the Doctor…Donna Noble calling. Get that skinny alien butt in here and let's go already."

"Right, yes. Go. Pizza. Yeah, let's go get some pizza," the Doctor said, running his hand over the back of his neck and making his way into the TARDIS. For some reason, he knew that Donna was leaving and he owed Donna Noble one more adventure.

Donna walked over to the console and leaned against it. "So where in the universe has the best pizza do you think?" she asked him as he made his way up the grating to the controls.

He stared at those levers and buttons as if he couldn't make sense of them. None of them fit… it wasn't right. "You want the best pizza, Donna? Well, for that, we don't even have to leave Earth. Good ol' Italy…Let's say 1830's in Naples. Did you know that most people consider the best pizza to be made with only San Marzano tomatoes that grow along Mount Vesuvius? Remember that? Mount Vesuvius?" he asked her as he flipped some unfamiliar switches. His hand was acting of its own accord, moving along the controls with practiced ease even though his mind was having a difficult time processing what buttons to hit next. They were all nonsensical, jumbled…

"How can I?" she asked him, her voice dropping, angry and accusatory. "I had to forget that."

The Doctor looked up from the monitor with a narrowed, threatening gaze. He remembered why he was here now, and he remembered that it wasn't Donna he was speaking to. "Round one goes to you," he said, leaning across the console towards her. "Bravo."

Donna (or what looked like her, anyway) glowered at him, arms crossed in front of her. "You knew what was going to happen to me. You knew what he would have to do and you couldn't have warned me? We were trapped in the TARDIS together for all that time, talking about the meta-crisis and you didn't even think to tell me what would happen to me? I lost everything so that you could exist. It is all your fault."

His hand flew to his pocket to find the TARDIS coral, but it wasn't responsive to his touch. The coral needed to believe that he was in danger, and just being sad wasn't dangerous.

"So that's your game, eh?" the Doctor mused aloud as he flung himself back into the jump seat and rested his heels on the console. He wondered what he was really sitting on…the ground…a log? "You know what I'm trying to do so…you figure that if you can keep me sad and depressed without making me fear for my life, then you'll be safe. Well, good plan. Gotta hand it to ya, it's clever. But I just wonder if you're going to be able to resist for long…"

He watched as what looked like Donna smiled a sickeningly sweet smile that would have never crossed the actual Donna's features. Donna had all sorts of smiles; the Doctor knew every single one; sarcastic smile, amused smile, the I-Don't-Want-To-Smile-But-You're-Too-Persistent smile, the I-Told-Ya-So-Spaceman smile, the That's-A-Barmy-Idea-And-I-Love-It smile, and…his personal favorite…the genuinely happy Donna Noble smile. This…this was not any of them and it actually turned his stomach.

Before he could say anything else, "Donna" turned and left the console room. Midway down the corridor, she faded away before his eyes.

"Alright," the Doctor yelled out into the empty TARDIS, "so who's up next? Is this some sort of twisted out of space 'This is Your Life?' You've got nine hundred years of people to torture me with. Might as well get on with it; could take all night. Bring out Susan, Ace, Martha, Sarah Jane, Romana…Oh c'mon, not even Leela or the Master? You're wasting your potential here."

The interior of the TARDIS was strangely silent save for his ranting. Was he supposed to follow the vision of Donna? She disappeared right in the hallway; she didn't go anywhere.

He stood up and was about to investigate the corridor, when a feminine hand came from behind him and started to slowly fiddle with the controls in front of him as he felt the person's other hand slide beneath his jacket and up his spine.

"Doctor," he heard Rose whisper in his ear, "take me home. I want to go home. I want to see Mum, Dad, and Tony. I miss them."

Whirling around and backing himself against the console, he stared dumbstruck at the vision of Rose that was now settling herself back into the jump seat. She lounged across it fluidly with a predatory glint in her eyes like a cat watching a wounded bird struggle to fly. Clad only in a sky blue oxford that covered her to her knees (_his_ oxford, he realized), she absentmindedly toyed with the duct tape holding the stuffing in the jump seat and smiled shyly through red, painted lips.

This was _so_ not his Rose.

"Round two," he gulped.


	32. Chapter 32

"Rose" slid off of the jump seat and stood mere centimeters away from him. The Doctor kept his face perfectly impassive, his jaw firmly set and clenched. But the way that his breath hitched as she lovingly adjusted his tie betrayed him.

"Just can't stay away, can you?" he asked, watching her intently. "I'm that irresistible?"

"There's so much pain in here," the vision of Rose said, placing a hand against his chest and then fluttering her eyelids up to his face. "So much guilt and sadness." She pressed herself up against him and used the lapels of his jacket to bring him closer to her as she whispered against his cheek, "It's intoxicating."

"I'm flattered," he told her with a wry smile and shifted back. He was almost sitting on the console in an effort to put distance between them.

"The Doctor and Rose Tyler…in the TARDIS. How many times have you dreamt of this?" she asked him.

"Uh, you're not Rose Tyler," he said, looking down to where her fingers were now caressing the buttons of his shirt.

She pushed her ruby lips out in a mock pout. "Why won't you just give in? Wouldn't it be wonderful, yeah? You've been here with me for a whole month, Doctor. I thought things would be different, but they're not. You still won't let me in. We barely get a moment alone. We still have separate bedrooms. We only ever kissed three times even. When are you plannin' to make a commitment? Or were you ever plannin' to at all? Were you just gonna fix the TARDIS and have me go back to bein' your assistant, your companion? Is that all I am to you, after all this time?"

"No," the Doctor protested without thinking. He felt dazed, disoriented. Why would she think that? She was so much more to him. It pained him to think that she would doubt his feelings for her. Didn't she know how much he loved her? It _did_ need saying and he _had_ said it. He had!

"So why all the distance?" she asked softly. "Time is so short for us now; it's so short for you now. You only have one life and you're gonna waste it bein' scared to make that step?"

"We needed time," he mumbled as her face came agonizingly close to his. "Wanted to…acclimate. Do things right. Didn't want to rush things, did I? No regrets; not this time. I wanted you to trust me. I wanted you to be happy."

"And what if I said that I wanted a mortgage; a house with carpets and windows; little kids with your gravity defying hair runnin' around in the garden?"

He almost forgot how to breathe. His heart beat at an unnatural rate. It wasn't because this scared him. Quite the contrary, actually; it was because he realized that if Rose Tyler wanted these things, then so did he. "I can give that to you," he said reverently. "I can now. We can have that."

Tears started to trail from her eyes and he lifted his hand to wipe them away. He never wanted to see her cry again and he swore to himself that he'd do everything in his power to make that a promise. "I don't know if you'll ever be capable. Would you really be satisfied with that?" she asked him.

"I've had over nine hundred years of time and space, Rose," he explained, stroking her cheek. "I love it, I do. And I love you though… I thought that's what you wanted too. I wanted to give you the stars… But if that's what you really want…" Why couldn't he think properly? The hum of the TARDIS was so loud; deafening, even. His head felt so very heavy.

"I want you." She shook her head and more tears welled up and glittered on her lashes. "I don't want the stars. They can't compare to you." When he swallowed audibly, she added, "That's hard for you to believe, isn't it?"

"I don't deserve it," he admitted.

"My Doctor," she said, a sad smile on her face, "you don't have to be the Oncoming Storm anymore. You're free; can't you see that?"

His mouth was hanging open and he just stared at her in awe. He was speechless. And what was with that maddening noise?

"Maybe you don't want to be free," Rose guessed, choking back sobs. "Maybe I'm not enough."

He was horrified by this. "No, of course not! Rose, you're more than enough!"

She reached for his hand and guided it to his pocket. He felt the TARDIS coral underneath the fabric. "Then prove it," Rose said. "Stop hanging on to your old life. Throw this back into the lake and let's move on with our own adventure." She looked so hopeful.

The Doctor was so utterly heartbroken by her confessions that he wanted to run right out to the lake and chuck the offending rock right into it if that's what it took to make her happy. He so desperately wanted Rose to be happy… But he felt that if he let go of the console, his knees would buckle. The air in here was so stifling and thick. His body seemed weighed down and his movements were languid and slow.

"Get away from me," he growled suddenly. The words came from his mouth, but he didn't know why he was saying them. Something was wrong. His mind seemed to be having a difficult time catching up with his mouth…and not in the usual way. "Get. Away. From. Me."

Rose looked hurt. He didn't want to hurt her. Why was he saying that to her? Her blue eyes were so wounded.

_Wait. Blue?_ That wasn't right.

_She's not Rose! Stop it, stop it, stop it! That's not her! Wake up!_

That wasn't Rose, was it? Something was off about her… well, other than the lack of clothing. Why were her eyes blue all of a sudden?

Something inside him snapped and he stumbled backwards faster than he found himself moving earlier. He almost tripped over his own feet as he pushed himself away from the console, but his arms shot behind him and he righted himself against the railing.

"Why would you say that to me?" the vision of Rose asked, taking a step in his direction.

"Stay back," he warned through gritted teeth.

"But I'm having so much fun," she giggled. "And I'm just getting warmed up…"

The Doctor blinked, and she was gone. He was still on the TARDIS and now alone for the second time. After taking a deep breath, he scrubbed his face with his hands and then felt for the coral in his pocket. It was still safe, but still inactive. He needed to make the Na'vorotti really come at him. The coral wouldn't do anything until he was in danger. But how to tempt it…?

"And where's my daughter while you're 'ere playin' hide the sonic screwdriver with some alien that looks like her?"

After banging his head against his forearm that rested on the railing, the Doctor turned to face a very angry Jackie Tyler as she emerged from one of the corridors, glaring at him.

"Jackie? Do I really need this right now?" he whined. "Is that the best that you could come up with?"

"Wha'?" the vision of Jackie asked. "I'm not who you were expectin'?"

"Not really," the Doctor muttered.

"You swore that you would always bring her home!" she yelled at him. "I knew that thing was trouble! I knew that you'd go and muck it all up with that stupid rock! I finally 'ad my family back together and then your alien nonsense took her away from me again. She needs her family, Doctor. She needs to be safe! She was 'appy! Why do you need to be puttin' her in danger all the time? Stuck in 1974? Really? How could you do this to us? What am I s'posed to tell Tony now when he wonders where his big sister is? Huh? Explain that one to me!"

The Doctor felt a rush of panic. Where was Rose, actually? Was she in danger?

"Uhggg!" he cried out and pushed the heels of his hands into his forehead. He needed to concentrate. "C'mon!" he shouted to thin air. "You throw her mother at me? Is that all you've got? You can't conjure up some Time War nonsense? Can't make the Master pop up and threaten to end the universe unless I destroy the TARDIS coral? I was expecting more, honestly…"

"Wanna know why I'm not takin' those ghosts from your past out for a spin?" the vision of Jackie asked him with uncontained malice. "Wanna know why you won't be seein' Romana, Susan, the Master, or the Time War?"

"Why?" he asked her, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Because those ghosts aren't from your past," she explained, grinning sadistically. "That wasn't you. That was the Doctor, and you're not him."

For some strange reason, that explanation wounded the half-human Doctor more than the Na'vorotti actually trotting out those memories ever could, and it knew it.

"You didn't travel with _his_ granddaughter. You didn't fight in the Time War. You were only created a month ago, out of blood and battle, to commit genocide and then happily skip away with the girl that _he_ loves to a parallel world where you can _pretend_ to be him. Those memories are _his_, not yours."

The Doctor slumped back against the railing. His despair over that realization was palpable, tangible. He wasn't the Doctor and he never would be. He was just a clone. How could some simple, human clone of a Time Lord ever hope to defeat foes that the actual Doctor would struggle with? This was all useless, wasn't it?

"Doctor," he heard Rose's voice from his side, but couldn't will himself to open his eyes to look at her. "Doctor, you need to fight this."

"I'm not the Doctor," he whispered.

"Yeah, ya are. Just a weird regeneration, remember? When has it ever been the body that you're in that matters? That changes all the time. Just 'cause you're not in a Time Lord body anymore doesn't mean anything. Isn't it the inside that counts? What about you're superior intelligence and all that?" Rose asked him. He felt her hands ghost gently up his chest and then she rested her palms on either side of his face. "I need you. Help me, Doctor. Keep fighting. C'mon, open your eyes."

He complied and saw Rose standing in front of him like the vision of her had before. She still wore the ridiculous red lipstick and his oxford so he knew that it wasn't really her. She wasn't really here. It was still just the Na'vorotti toying with him.

"That… that outfit that you've put her in won't throw me this time. As disarming as Rose Tyler is dressed like that, it won't work now. I know what you really are and I know what you're trying to do," he hissed.

"Uh, Doctor…" the vision of Rose said, grinning with her tongue between her teeth, "You're right, I'm not really here. I'm what _you've_ thought up to get you out of this. Let me help you."

"What?" he asked, mouth dropping open to gape incredulously at her. "I'm hallucinating you on my own?"

"Your mind is beginning to work its way out. It's alright," she said, running her fingers down his sideburns. "You're using the Na'vorotti against itself. Notice my eyes…"

"I'm brilliant," he gasped.

"And modest," she noted, biting her lip to hold back a laugh.

"Ah, but you're still dressed like that…" he realized aloud, raising one eyebrow.

"Reckon you liked the way this looked." She shrugged.

"Well…" he said, scratching his chin, "as long as I'm going to hallucinate you…might as well."

Rose smiled up at him in a way that made him giddy beyond belief and playfully smacked his arm. She couldn't be the Na'vorotti, he was much too happy to have her here.

Before he could ask her anything else, she leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. When she pulled away, she asked him, "Know what you have to do?"

"Oh yes!" he said triumphantly, a sly smile lighting up his face. "Hold on." He grabbed her hand that was pressed against his heart. "How do I really know that you're not…"

With a shake of her head and a roll of her brown eyes, Rose said, "Look around you, Doctor. It's working…" And at that, she faded away.

His red trainers crunched in the dead leaves on the forest floor as he shifted his position. The trees that surrounded him blocked his view from the night sky. He no longer saw the TARDIS or anyone else out here with him. It was all gone. He was back to reality, and he had a brilliant, mad plan.


	33. Chapter 33

_**Another thank you to everyone who has been following and reviewing! I know I've posted quite a few chapters today, but I'm so anxious now that I have it all completely planned out. It's like I can't get this down fast enough and I'm excited to share it with you all. Keep following along, I've still got a few more surprises up my sleeve.**_

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The shining world of the seven systems stood out clear in the Doctor's mind. The red grass stretched out as far as he could envision and the silver leaves on the trees were reflecting the terrible explosions in the distance, making them glimmer back crimson as if they were dripping with the blood of the fallen. The screams… He could still hear those screams as vivid as the day that they reverberated off of the mountains.

The Doctor fell to his knees in that quiet forest on Earth, so very far away from home. His fingers clawed at the dry dirt beneath him and he lurched forward as if in pain. But wasn't he? A pain that he felt so deeply it was buried under his nine hundred years of memories. Now, he was bringing it all up to the surface. His body shook with the effort of it and he tumbled to his side on the ground, clutching his head and smearing dirt on his temples.

It was all around him now. He could smell the burnt flesh of his people as the Daleks fired at them and screeched out their awful commands. The memory of it all was fresh now, as if it had only just happened…or as if it was happening right then. Nothing could do the destruction justice as he looked on, helpless, as the assault on his planet rained down around him. He thrashed and convulsed on the ground in immeasurable agony as he pulled the images to the forefront of his mind. Crying out in a dead language, a language that he had no reason to ever hear again, the Doctor willed himself to remember every last detail.

He screamed then; a guttural, primal, honest scream that wracked his entire frame. His throat burned from the ash as he opened his eyes to see the memory surround him. He had done it! All around him, the images that he had conjured up came alive. The Na'vorotti couldn't resist that much despair and it had drew it all out of his mind to make it real for him.

The Doctor saw his TARDIS standing tall a few feet from him, amid the devastation. He was reliving the last few moments of the Time War and he knew what he needed to do as he crawled carefully across the ground towards his trusty time machine. She would be his saving grace. He could stop all of it – if only he could get to the TARDIS.

Holding his sonic screwdriver out in front of him, he used it to open the TARDIS doors and tried desperately to make his way through the battle to her. The TARDIS coral that was still in his pocket jabbed him in the side and he suddenly remembered what he needed to do. The Doctor pulled out the coral and pointed the sonic screwdriver at it as he attempted to conceal himself against the wooden wall of the police box. Seemingly out of nowhere, he heard something hateful scream, "Exterminate!" The world was going black around him again, but he held on to his senses just in time to throw the TARDIS coral directly into the vision of the TARDIS that he was leaning against before burying his face into the leaves on the forest floor and covering his head from another explosion.

"Get up, Doctor," he heard a slightly familiar voice tell him. He felt a shoe push into his ribs and the Doctor rolled over onto his back to stare up at an alien that was neither Time Lord nor Dalek. It was August Harrison, and he was pointing a gun directly down at the Doctor.

To the Doctor's surprise, August reached out and offered his hand, helping the disoriented half Time Lord to his feet. The Doctor found that he was no longer hallucinating as he was greeted with the familiar sights and smells of the forest. Panting and gasping for breath, he leaned forward and braced his hands on his knees. "Is that any way to thank me for trapping your monster?" the Doctor asked August, jerking his head in the direction of the TARDIS coral lying in the grass next to a massive tree trunk.

"It's gone?" August gasped, the hand holding the gun on the Doctor wavering a bit.

"If I may," the Doctor said, asking permission and slowly making his way over to the piece of coral. He grimaced at the effort of moving his limbs.

August nodded. "How'd you do that? I couldn't get it to show itself to me."

"I was keeping it busy. Sorry," the Doctor explained, holding the coral in his hand now and cautiously scanning it with his sonic. "She's got it contained in here. Old girl's still got some fight left in her." He cleared his throat and nodded at a device that looked like an ECG meter hanging out of August's pocket. "Ah, is that what you were going to use?" he asked.

"It's what we used to capture it and bring it here," August said. "But since it had gotten stronger…"

The Doctor nodded and sucked in a breath through his teeth when his head throbbed in response. He squinted his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Are you alright?" August asked, honestly seeming concerned.

"Had to create my own hallucinations to get the Na'vorotti to do what I wanted it to. It isn't as easy as one might think," he explained and promptly stumbled forward as his legs started to give way.

August reached out and caught the Doctor by the shoulders. "Let's get you back to my ship and we'll check you out."

Letting a small chuckle, the Doctor braced himself and stood on his own, albeit shakily. "Going to help me then? Want to stop waving the gun at me while you're at it?"

"If you promise to come willingly," August offered.

"Where's Rose?" the Doctor asked, eyes burning at August with carefully contained anger.

"She's safe," August said. "Emily took them all back to our ship for some standard testing. Completely harmless, I assure you. She should be just fine."

"She had better be," the Doctor warned him as they made their way through the forest. "Or the Na'vorotti will be the least of your worries."


	34. Chapter 34

August Harrison had asked the Doctor to walk in front of him, if he would be so kind, until they reached the cabin that Emily and August had been staying in. The Doctor wondered where the ship was, but before he could voice this aloud, he got his answer.

An owl was perched atop the cabin, looking down at them. Only, the owl wasn't so much as perched on the roof of the cabin as it was sitting about ten feet above the roof, claws digging into to something that the Doctor couldn't see. Well, couldn't see until he noticed it, that is. Whatever the aliens were using to cloak their appearances also seemed to be what they were using to mask their ship as well. It wasn't completely invisible as Jack's ship had been. No, this was more a trick of the senses. The Doctor could make out an outline and get a sense of what was above them, but before his mind could process what he was seeing, his eyes were locked onto something else and he almost forgot about the distortion of the air immediately.

"Oh, that's some wonderful bit of technology!" the Doctor fawned. "Been here this whole time and we've all been walking right by it. That's pretty remarkable and, mind you, I don't give compliments like that every day." He pulled out his glasses and kept staring up into the sky, spinning slowly in a circle. "Your lot must be quite advanced. This is a primitive form of a perception filter. What planet did you say you're from again?"

"I didn't," August said, shaking his head. "Doctor, let's get you into the med bay. You need to be patched up before we can leave."

"Leave?" the Doctor asked him as they walked through the cabin to the second floor. "Ah, you're taking us all back to your planet for proper testing, aren't you?"

"I'm under orders," was all August said as he motioned for the Doctor to climb out of the second story window.

The Doctor eyed him cautiously before sticking his head out of the window and finding that he was no longer outside, but in the belly of what appeared to be a cargo room on a spaceship. Crates filled with supplies were stacked in rows along the expansive room. There was writing on the crates, but without the TARDIS intervening, the Doctor couldn't make out what was written on them.

"Couldn't be that easy, could it?" he mumbled as he walked ahead of August to the med bay.

Soon, they were entering a white room filled with lab equipment and medical supplies. The Doctor figured that they had finally arrived and was startled to see Philip and William strapped the wall on the far side. They appeared to be unconscious. After doing a visual sweep of the room, the Doctor also noted that it was a mess, a complete mess. Some tables were knocked over, broken glass was strewn all about the floor, and there were various pieces of equipment toppled over and scattered every which way.

"What in the….?" August said, walking around the Doctor and taking a closer look at the room. "Emily!" he yelled and ran over to a form that was slumped on the ground.

The Doctor hurried over to him and knelt beside Emily's form. He felt her pulse. She was still alive. And that's when he noticed the needle that stuck out from her arm, just below the sleeve of her lab coat. After removing the needle, the Doctor looked at August to find that he had let out a sigh of relief.

"She's just sedated. That's just a sedative," he whispered, slumping on the floor and letting the panic settle. "Why is she sedated?"

But the Doctor wasn't paying attention to him. He was looking up at a sort of pod made of yellow glass that stood in front of them. Blonde hair hid the face of the woman who was passed out inside, but he knew who it was immediately. The Doctor saw that the other pods were filled with people from the resort as well. He turned cool, calculating eyes to August. "Looks like Rose wasn't as cooperative as everyone else."

August took a deep breath and his grip tightened on the gun at his side. "She's fine, Doctor. They're all fine. It's a stasis chamber to keep them safe for travel. She's only asleep."

The Doctor stood and started scanning the pod with his sonic screwdriver and, finding that August was right and Rose was indeed safe, he ignored August completely and pulled the coral out of his pocket. He walked over to a medical examining table that was not knocked over and began to get some readings on the coral with his sonic screwdriver again.

"Doctor, let me take a look at you," August insisted after he had lifted Emily's sleeping form onto another examination table.

Dismissing him with a wave of his hand, the Doctor continued his monitoring of the TARDIS coral. "I'm right as rain," he told him. "This, on the other hand…"

"What exactly is that?" asked August, coming over to watch.

"It's part of a ship – a great ship. She has the creature contained for the moment, but it'll destroy her and the creature along with it," he explained. Then the Doctor held the coral up to his ear and used his telepathic abilities to listen to what was going on inside. He jerked backwards when the creature's screams of anger assaulted his mind. "Oh, he's not very happy."

"But it can't get out?" August asked tentatively.

"No," the Doctor said. "Once the TARDIS coral dies, it'll take the Na'vorotti down into the nothingness with it, trapping it forever and suspending it in time itself." He paused and furrowed his brow down at the coral. "Can I see that energy emitter that you were going to use to trap it earlier?"

August seemed reluctant, but handed the device over. "It was found aboard the ship that was excavated with the creature aboard."

The Doctor turned the device over and over again in his hand. It had some sort of special energy core that was visible through the back, but he couldn't determine what the source of it was. It made his fingers jittery to hold the device, almost as if it was calling out. After running his sonic screwdriver over it, he became enthralled at the readings he was getting. "You're kidding me," he gasped, staring down at the device.

"What?" August asked. "What is it?"

"This ship that it was excavated from… were there any life forms present?"

"None, other than the creature."

"Doesn't surprise me. The ship must have been abandoned because of the creature. This device was created by the Skith. Those bloody brilliant, curious idiots! No wonder they fled; the Na'vorotti would completely destroy them," the Doctor explained, dragging a hand down from his hair to his chin.

"Will it still work on it?"

"Ah, no," the Doctor admitted. "Not anymore, anyway, with the Na'vorotti as strong as it is now. But if I had access to more of these devices then there is a chance that I could combine the energy cores to create a lasting cage for it. Don't suppose that you'd have any more of these on hand?"

"Not here," August told him. "We do have more back on my planet, though. We also have the ship that it was found on. Figured it came from Kantra, actually, since they're the closest planet to us. Never thought that it was from that far away," he said, leaning in closer to inspect the device.

The Doctor smiled slowly, "August, my friend, I do believe that I'll be a willing subject for abduction; but only if I can get a look at that ship and the contents. I might be able to save my ship after all…"

"My superiors would never go for it," August said, shaking his head. "We have a war on, Doctor. I'm to do what I'm told."

Sighing, the Doctor set the energy emitter back down on the examination table next to the coral and prepared to give a speech on how dull it was to follow orders when something clicked in his mind. "Hold on, did you say Kantra's the closest planet to you?"

August cleared his throat and turned away, "S'pose I did."

"Oh, that's…I can't even think of a word; and if you knew me, you'd know how rare that is," the Doctor cried out, dashing from behind the table and grabbing August by his shoulders. "Close to Kantra, thousands of years of war… you're from Upsyllion!"

"And this is a good thing?" August asked the excited half Time Lord that was currently grinning like a madman at him.

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "Oh yes," he enthused. "You might not believe this, but I'm not from Earth either – in fact, I'm from another planet in another dimension from another time." The Doctor paused. "Blimey, I really am still an alien."

"No, I don't think I find all that hard to believe," August said, scrutinizing him. "But what does this have to do with me being from Upsyllion?"

"I know how your war ends," the Doctor told him excitedly. "And it has nothing to do with the Na'vorotti."

"What do you mean?" asked August, looking as hopeful as the Doctor had ever seen the poor man.

Pushing up his glasses, the Doctor grinned. "In the dimension that I'm from, your people find another planet… a sister planet to yours. If only I could remember the name…I think I know the coordinates, though. Anyway, this civil war of yours ends when one of your groups decides to set out for this other planet. It's the perfect solution and the fighting stops."

"Do you think this other planet exists here?" August wondered, becoming thrilled at the prospect.

"It's worth a shot," the Doctor said.

"But how does this play out?" August asked him. "In your original dimension… it just all works out?"

"If memory serves," the Doctor explained, "a scientist named 'Greyon' finds this other planet and ends the war. He becomes a hero, in fact. His name spans the universe for the discovery…" But he trailed off as he saw the look of absolute shock that crossed August Harrison's features. "That's you isn't it?"

"I end the war?" August asked, clearly not directly speaking to the Doctor anymore. He sat back in one of the chairs, staring off into the distance. "How can I end the war?"

"Greyon," the Doctor addressed him and the man's head snapped up, "that ship isn't discovered in the other universe. You weren't sent here to Earth. You find this other planet. But how could you here? You said yourself that you've been stuck on Earth for years. I believe it's time that we set this right. Whaddya think?"

"If it brings my son home, Doctor, then I'll do whatever it takes," Greyon, formerly August, said.

"Brilliant! Then we've got work to do." The Doctor rummaged through his pockets for a small notepad and a pen. He wrote down the galactic coordinates for the planet that he believed to be the one that ends the war on Upsyllion.

Greyon stared down at the slip of paper. "After all this, you're going to help me end the war?"

"This is what I do, Greyon. I told you that before."

"You really do know what it all is like, don't you?" the alien asked him. "You know what this could mean for my planet, for my family… I heard you out there in the forest, Doctor. When you were lying on the ground in the hallucination… I heard you scream out terrible things about a nightmare child, the destruction of somewhere called Arcadia, an army of meanwhiles and neverweres. When I found you, you were mumbling into the leaves about a moment and a De-Mat Gun. What happened in your war, Doctor?"

The Doctor just stared down at him. His lips had become a thin line and his jaw hurt from the pressure of clenching it. His bright brown eyes had become dark and old. "If I can save your planet from the inevitable fate that befell mine…" He shook his head. "Yes, Greyon, I understand what this means for you. I was a Time Lord and I fought in the Last Great Time War. I do understand."

No flicker of recognition showed on Greyon's carefully disguised human face. "I haven't heard of the Last Great Time War… or Time Lords, Doctor."

"No, you wouldn't have," the Doctor said sadly. "I've had my suspicions about that. I don't believe that my planet ever existed in this dimension." Suddenly, his face lit up. "But enough about all that. We've got a war to end. So why don't you get the phones fixed and let my friends here out of their constraints?"

"Why do you need the phones?" Greyon asked him.

"Need to call Torchwood. They can come in and clean up the mess you've made here."

"Emily will never go for this," Greyon objected.

"Stick her in one of the pods then," The Doctor suggested.

Greyon walked over to a panel attached to the wall. It looked like a breaker box, but had a keypad on the front. "This is part of my ship's communication system. Dr. O'Brien broke it before he… Anyway, he's also the one who disabled the phone lines. I can't contact anyone, let alone get home without this."

The Doctor stood next to him and ran his fingers over the panel. "Ah, simple enough," he said, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and making a few adjustments to the settings before opening the panel and staring at the ripped wires that fell out. "Hmmm... I might need some time on this."

"But you can fix it?" Greyon asked, hopefully.

"Probably…maybe." The Doctor cleared his throat and squinted through his glasses. "Boy, he did a number on this… Tell ya what, you wake up my friends over there, let these people go, and I'll fix your communication system. I'll get in touch with Torchwood and they can deal with the aftermath of this while we set off for your new planet."

"We'll end the war…" Greyon said, nodding.

"Yes, Greyon, we'll do just that," confirmed the Doctor. "But I'm going to need some supplies. Mind if I take a look at the contents of your storage room?"

"It's through there," Greyon said, pointing at the door they came through as he walked over to William and Philip, preparing to release them from their bonds on the wall.

"Brilliant!"


	35. Chapter 35

The Doctor stared down at the device that he had found in the storage room aboard Greyon's ship. It was broken and no amount of sonicing could restore it to proper functioning, but it was still useable…But only for one person…for one trip…and he had made a promise…

"Torchwood's on their way," the Doctor told Greyon when he heard him enter the room.

"You fixed the system?"

"Yup," he said, still toying with the device in his hand…trying to make a decision. "Are all the people alright in there?"

"I took everyone out of stasis. William and Philip will be awake any time now…"

"How long before the ones out of stasis wake up?" asked the Doctor.

Greyon looked thoughtful for a moment. "Depends on the individual, but humans are usually coherent in four to six hours…"

"Torchwood will be here before that. They can deal with those that wake up. We need to be long gone before they get here," the Doctor warned him. "Otherwise, they might try to arrest you…or me. Dunno." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "They weren't very understanding about aliens in my original universe."

They both heard a loud clang come from the med bay. "I think either Philip or William is awake now," Greyon said.

"Right. Well, then we'd better enlist their help in getting everyone off of this ship before we depart," the Doctor said, shoving the device that he was holding in his pocket and directing Greyon back into the med bay.

When they came into the room, Philip jumped off of the examining table that Greyon had laid him on and grabbed a scalpel from the medical cart, holding it out in front of him like a weapon. He scrambled to get across the room, but his legs were still wobbly and so he promptly fell on his backside, much to his chagrin.

The Doctor grimaced. "No need for dramatics, Philip. It's alright. You're safe now."

"They're kidnapping us!" Philip said, standing up on his shaking legs and glaring at Greyon.

"He's letting you all go now," the Doctor explained. "I agreed to go with him to help him end the war on his planet. Everything is fine. There are people on their way now to help you cover up what happened here. Carter Cabins won't be affected at all."

"What about everyone else?" William asked from his examination table, sitting up and rubbing his head as if it hurt. "What about my wife?"

"She's going to be awake in a few hours," Greyon explained. "No harm came to her."

"And the other one? Emily? What about her?" Philip asked, setting the scalpel back down.

The Doctor jerked his head in the direction of one of the pods. "She's secured for now. Can't risk her mucking up our plans. We are going to need you two to help us get everyone off of this spacecraft, though. If you're up to the job, that is." Smiling broadly, the Doctor added, "We've only got about…oh, two hours left before we need to flee the planet."

Once the Doctor, Greyon, and the two slightly groggy humans carried everyone downstairs to the empty cabin, Philip and William were even more knackered than before. William was so tired, in fact, that it barely registered to him who the Doctor was carrying out until he put a sleeping Rose Tyler gently on the floor next to Sabrina Greene.

Taking a seat on the wood floor next to William, the Doctor pulled the device that he had stuck in his pocket out and started scanning it with the sonic screwdriver. He had made up his mind, and he always at least tried to keep his promises.

"What's that?" William asked him, gesturing to the device in the Doctor's hands.

"Vortex Manipulator," the Doctor explained as he leaned forward and fastened it to Rose's limp wrist. Then, with a sigh and a somber look on his face, he said, "I'm sending her home."

"You're leaving her?" William asked accusingly. His almond shaped eyes narrowed in disapproval. "Are you completely barking mad?"

"Yes. Well, no; not entirely. Not if all goes according to plan," the Doctor said, swallowing hard. The lump in his throat was still there, but he had made up his mind. He had to risk this. He needed to know that she would be safe at home with her family. He wouldn't ask her to give them up again. Not for him. Not if there was a chance… "It'll only be for a little while," he rationed, more to himself than to William. "I'll be back for her. But this little wrist strap only has enough juice for one person to make one trip. I've got to try to send her home. I made a promise to her mother. And if I go with August to his planet, then there's a chance that I can save my TARDIS coral and make it back to her."

"I'm not sure I'm following," William admitted.

"Just make sure that she's alright when she wakes up," the Doctor practically begged him. "She'll be confused, no doubt." He smoothed Rose's hair from her face. "I'm doing it to her again, you see. I'm sending her away for her own good – to protect her. Hopefully, she'll forgive me again. It's a lot for me to ask of her since she's had to forgive that so many times before. But if there's one thing that Rose Tyler knows about me, it's that I'm always trying to do what's best for her – whether she wants me to or not."

"We'll explain it to her the best we can," Philip said, coming to stand next to them.

"Doctor," Greyon shouted down from the stairs, "We've got to be off now. Not much time left."

The Doctor leaned forward and kissed Rose's forehead. After taking one more long, lingering look at her sleeping form, he stood and nodded at William and Philip. "It was very nice to meet you both. You're both brilliant, remember that." He shook their hands. "Oh, and William, little advice… after this, take Sabrina somewhere on a proper holiday. Somewhere…romantic. Maybe Paris?"

William chuckled. "Doctor's orders?"

The Doctor gave him a small smile. "Right-o," he said and walked to the stairs. After pausing for a bit on the second step, the Doctor turned around again, his hands shoved into his pockets. "Ah, I should probably warn you… I've set the Vortex Manipulator to the proper coordinates already. It'll activate itself a few minutes after it registers that Rose is awake and won't detach from her wrist until it has made its jump. Now…" he cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, "I love her…very much. And I'm trusting both of you with the task of seeing that she gets back in one piece. It's important to me. _She's_ important to me. But she'll do everything in her power to fight this once she wakes up, if I know her. Don't underestimate her. This is a woman who ripped down the fabric of reality and distorted time and space itself to save me once. She's crossed dimensions with little regard to her own safety just to get back to me. And when she wakes up, she's going to be angry." The Doctor shot them a wide grin that was almost proud. "Good luck."

With that, he dashed up the stairs and out of sight. William and Philip heard a deafening roar of powerful engines as the ground beneath them shook slightly with the force of the ship above them taking off into the atmosphere. They both looked down at Rose, who was beginning to stir from her slumber, and then back at each other with uneasy anticipation. What had they gotten themselves into?


	36. Chapter 36

Her head was pounding; absolutely pounding. And why was she lying on a hard floor?

Rose Tyler opened her eyes and had no idea where she was. Staring up at wooden rafters, her limbs heavy with exhaustion, she groaned and raised her arm up to rub her forehead but the second that she saw her wrist, she stopped. She sat up quickly and winced at the pain that seared through her skull as she did so. But she didn't have time to worry about that because she was too busy staring in horror and confusion at the Vortex Manipulator that was fastened to her wrist.

"Wha'?' she choked out. What had happened? She mentally went over everything that she remembered. She had last woken up on a spaceship. Emily and August were abducting them. She fought with Emily and fell into one of the pods…that's all she could remember. Did the Doctor have something to do with this?

"Rose, are you alright?" she heard someone ask from beside her.

She whipped her head up to look straight at Philip. He was scrutinizing her cautiously. William Greene sat beside him, wearing the same expression. They looked…odd, as if they were pitying her.

After taking a quick look around, Rose deduced that they were in one of the cabins. There were people lying on the floor all over the place so they must be off of the spaceship. But how?

"Where's the Doctor," she asked. All other questions could be delayed, she had to know the answer to that one first. He had to have been responsible for this…

"Uh, I think you need to take it easy," William said, reaching out for her when she tried to stand up.

"I need to see him," Rose protested. "Where is he? What happened?"

"We need to explain this to her soon," Philip said to William. "He said that we would only have a few minutes."

"A few minutes before what?" Rose asked urgently. She felt panic bubbling up in her chest.

"Rose, everything is fine now. The Doctor showed up with August and he got them to let us go. The monster that was here is gone now. He trapped it. We're all safe," Philip explained cautiously to her.

She took a deep breath. He had done it. Of course he had; she knew he would. She never doubted him for a second. They were safe – stuck in 1974, but safe. "So where is he?" she asked again. But before they could answer, she heard a beeping from the Vortex Manipulator that was still attached to her wrist. She had forgotten about that in her relief and now looked down at it with renewed anxiety. "Why is this on me? What's goin' on?" She tried to pry it off, but the clasp wouldn't budge.

"The Doctor put that on you," William said. He seemed upset.

"Why?" she demanded and again tried to pull it off.

"He said it could only make a trip for one person and only once. He said that he was sending you home." William cleared his throat and looked at the ground. "He left with August in his ship."

Rose's breathing became ragged and she felt like she was going to pass out yet again. She opened the top panel of the Vortex Manipulator and started frantically pressing buttons. It was unresponsive save for the continued beeping. "Sending me home? What does he think he's doing? He wouldn't just leave me!"

"He wanted to keep you safe. That's what he said," Philip told her, reaching out for her hand. Rose jerked hers away from him. "That thing won't come off until it takes you home. He did say that he would be back for you though."

"How?" Rose practically shouted at them. "How is he going to come back if he doesn't have a TARDIS? Why would he do this?"

"There was something about a war that he was going to stop and… He said that you'd have to forgive him for…" William trailed off.

"For what?" Rose said, standing up and looking around for something to pry the Vortex Manipulator off of her wrist with. "For leavin' me…sendin' me off for my own good, again? He can't! He can't do this to me again! He just…can't." She held back tears as she stared at the two men helplessly. The beeping was getting faster now. She didn't have much time left.

"It'll be alright," Philip told her. "He promised that it would be alright. I've never met anyone like him, Rose. If he says that he'll come back, then…"

But he was cut off as the world around her exploded in a blinding light. She started sobbing as she felt herself being carried through time. It was too late…


	37. Chapter 37

_**I know everyone's angry with the Doctor for sending Rose away - again. But the Meta-Crisis Doctor is still the same man, and he's going to make the same decisions that the Doctor would - and the same mistakes. Although, I don't think he'd see making sure Rose got home safely as a mistake. They wouldn't be the Doctor and Rose if they weren't sacrificing for each other. Let's have a little faith in our favorite half Time Lord, though. He wouldn't have done this if he didn't have a good reason...**_

_**And thanks so much for the reviews! They really make my day to have people so invested and sticking with the story!**_

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The Vortex Manipulator detached from her wrist and fell to the floor with a heavy 'thunk' as soon as Rose found herself in the living room of the cabin. As dazed as she was (and a little unsteady on her feet), she was able to see that it was present day. There was barely any time for her to compose herself before her mum and dad came sprinting into the room from the kitchen.

Her mother grabbed her in an embrace immediately. "Rose! Rose, what 'appened? We woke up this mornin' and your room... the whole bedroom was gone! It looks as if it's been ripped off the wall! And you and the Doctor were missin'…We reckoned some alien snatched you both. Are you alright? Where did ya go?"

Rose took a deep, shaky breath through her tears. "Mum, the TARDIS coral took us back to this resort in 1974. It was an accident. She was only tryin' to make me happy…but there was something bad goin' on and there were these aliens that were causin' it all." She sat on the sofa and covered her face with her hands as she attempted to get a hold of herself.

"Rose…Sweetheart, where's the Doctor?" her dad asked, coming to sit next to her and rubbing his hand over her back.

She looked up at him with plaintive eyes. "He left with the aliens so that everyone at the resort could be set free. When I woke up…he was just gone. Somethin' about ending a war and…" Her voice broke as she tried to keep her composure. "He sent me back home with a Vortex Manipulator and he just left…" She turned to her mum. "He did it again, Mum. He sent me back." Rose buried her face against her mum's green velvet clad shoulder.

"He did what was best for you," her mum tried to console her. "You know he only did this to protect you."

Rose pulled away from her and gave her an odd, calm look. "Just like all those other times, yeah?"

"Yes, Sweet'eart," Jackie told her. "He 'as only sent you away when he needed to keep ya safe. He made me a promise. He's daft, that one, but he loves you and he knows you need your family."

"Well, all those other times I've found my way back. And that's just what I'm gonna do now," Rose said, standing up from the couch and going over to grab the Vortex Manipulator. "I built the dimension cannon; I can fix this thing too. Use it to find the Doctor. It'll be fine. I'll find him."

Jackie went to speak, but Pete held up his hand. "Jacks, let me." Rose's father went over to her. She held the Vortex Manipulator in her hand, but it was dead and silent. "Rose, even if you got that thing to work again, it wouldn't take you to the Doctor. He won't be on Earth in 1974 again. Do you have any idea what planet he's on?"

"No," Rose admitted. "But I've gotta try, Dad."

She gave Pete Tyler the same determined, broken look that she had given him before when she was building the dimension cannon to get back to the Doctor. It was that look that made him give in last time. But this was different. "No, not with that you're not," he said, taking it from her hand. "Torchwood operatives are already here on sight looking for you and the Doctor. I'll put another call in and we'll see if we can find another way to get him back. But you're not using that thing and you're not doing this alone."

Rose was becoming angry now. Didn't they understand? The Doctor had been basically kidnapped. She needed to find him. "I can't just sit here while he's out there somewhere – stranded. Dad, he can't regenerate now. He's human!"

"Agent Tyler," Pete addressed her firmly, "this is an order from your father and your boss. You will comply with orders and I expect you to behave like the Torchwood agent that you are."

He was right, Rose realized. The Doctor didn't just send away Rose, his nineteen year old shop girl companion. She was Rose Tyler, Torchwood agent and Defender of the Earth, and she was not going to take this lying down.

After wiping the tears from her face, she took a deep breath and began to pace around the room, fiddling with her earring while she tried to come up with something. "Right, Dad, call the operatives in. We need to put out an APB on the Doctor. He could try to contact us and he'd go through Torchwood first."

"Rose, wouldn't he be…much older now?" Jackie asked cautiously as Pete gave her a look of warning.

"He took the TARDIS coral with him. He had a plan to get back, I just don't know what it is," Rose explained. "So we'll need every field agent on hand to be on the lookout for…I dunno…something. Maybe he could use the coral to come through the rift in Cardiff… seems like something he'd do. We need to be monitoring it. I need to see the scans that were done on the area where the bedroom was. There could be some residual link left. It hasn't been that long in this time since we left."

"That's my girl," Pete said and nodded at her before getting on his mobile and leaving the room.

Jackie was still sitting on the sofa, staring at Rose. "What?" Rose asked her, tucking her hair behind her ear and feeling slightly self-conscious under her mother's eye.

"You're just so different now," Jackie said. "You're not my little girl anymore."

"Mum," Rose lamented, rolling her eyes, "I'm twenty five now. That's a long ways from bein' a little girl. And let's not start this again."

"No, that's not what I meant," Jackie protested, getting up to stand in front of Rose. "You grew up. When you first started travelin' with him, I thought you'd change and become this person that I wouldn't recognize. I thought that you wouldn't be the same little girl that made me read 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' over and over again or let me braid her hair for primary school pictures even though you hated those frilly dresses that I put you in. I worried that the girl that I stayed up at night with talkin' about what Jimmy Stone did that week to put you out or what trouble Shareen and Keisha got into at the downtown clubs would be gone. I thought that I'd lose that Rose. But 'ere you are, Rose Tyler…all grown up. And ya know what? You're not that Rose anymore…but you're still Rose Tyler. You're still my daughter…even if you are barkin' orders at Torchwood operatives and out savin' the world. You still come home and have tea with me and play with Tony. So when you do find the Doctor…and you will find him…don't be cross with him. He's only doin' what someone who loves you would do."

"I know," Rose admitted. "I understand why he's done everythin' that he's done. I know it's all been for my 'own good.' But that doesn't mean that I'm any less angry at him for making decisions for me without even consultin' me on it."

"What would you do?" Jackie asked her, putting her hands on her hips. "If you were the one in his position…Say you had the chance to get him out of danger; wouldn't ya take it?"

"That's not fair."

"I'm tellin' ya… knowin' the two o' you and all the trouble you get up to, the day is gonna come when there's that option. And as stubborn as both of ya are, it's no wonder the both of ya are always sacrificing yourselves for the other. It's a bloody merry-go-round, it is."

Rose almost huffed in response. "But he doesn't just get to choose for me. I dunno why he thinks that he can,"

"When you're a parent, I think you'll understand. He's not only thinkin' about you, Sweet'eart. He's thinkin' about your entire family."

"I'm still gonna find him," Rose said, pulling out her mobile to put a call into to Torchwood. "And when I do, I'm still gonna be cross about it."


	38. Chapter 38

Rose gulped down more coffee at the kitchen table, staring at the readings from the scans that were done from the air and soil around the missing bedroom. It was almost five in the morning and she had been at this all night. Her mum wanted everyone to go back to London, but Rose and Pete refused incase the Doctor tried to make contact with them at Carter Cabins. The printouts weren't showing anything, so she picked up her mobile and was just about to call in to check on the rift, when Tony came around the corner.

The three year old was still in his pajamas, but wore his shoes on the wrong feet and a backwards ball cap on his head. He was carrying his toy sonic screwdriver that Rose had made him ages ago out of a ball point pen and a LED keychain torch and had his backpack slung over one shoulder.

"And where do ya think you're going?" Rose asked him, smiling at her little brother.

"To save the Doctor. Mummy said he's missing and you're sad, so we're gonna find him," Tony explained, opening a kitchen cupboard and shoving various food stuffs inside his backpack.

Rose watched as he tried to fit an entire box of biscuits in the bag. "Is all that food for us? You think we'll get that hungry trying to find him?"

"The Doctor might be real hungry. What if he doesn't have any food?" Tony asked, opening the only other low cupboard that he could reach. After not finding anything in there other than pots and pans, Tony reached up and grabbed the jam from on top of the counter. "He likes strawberry."

When he made an attempt to grab a couple of pears out of the fruit bowl on the table, Rose laughed. "No, not those, Tony Baloney. The Doctor will never forgive me if we rescue him only to hand him a pear." She looked thoughtful for a minute. "Though, might serve 'im right." She got up from her chair and gently took the backpack from Tony, setting it on the table. "Sun's not even up yet. Why don't you go back to bed for a while, yeah?"

"I wanna help you find the Doctor," Tony protested, sticking out his lower lip in a pout.

"I know. But I promise that you can help when you wake up later. If we're gonna find the Doctor, then you're gonna need your rest. Savin' people makes you very tired, trust me," she said, picking the little boy up and carting him back to his bedroom.

"Rose?" Tony asked as she tucked him in.

"Hmm?"

"I wanna hear 'bout the time the Doctor fought the scribble monster and saved the little alien."

"Oh, that one," Rose said, pushing his blonde hair out of his eyes. She crawled into the tiny bed with him and stared up at the ceiling. The Doctor had made Tony a lantern that projected the constellations and now the little boy refused to sleep unless it was turned on. "The little alien was called the Isolus. She got lost from her brothers and sisters as they were travelin' through the stars. She was very sad and very lonely, so she found a little girl named Chloe. Chloe was also very lonely…"

Rose went on to tell him how the Isolus tried to make friends by putting the children into drawings. "But that's not how you make friends, is it?"

"No," Tony agreed, letting out a yawn.

"The Isolus didn't understand that you just needed to be nice and kind to people. We needed to show the Isolus that and find a way to send her home to her family…"

As Rose continued the story, she saw Tony shutting his eyes, finally giving in. She was exhausted herself, but pressed on with the tale until she was sure that he wouldn't wake back up and beg her to continue. It wasn't long until Rose knew she was nodding off because, for a brief second, she thought she heard the TARDIS materializing. She shook her head, knowing that it was just her imagination working overtime as she fought sleep.

"So I tried to find something that was warm and full of love," she whispered to her sleeping brother as she felt herself slowly nodding off. She thought she heard footsteps in the hallway, but reckoned that it was either her mum or dad waking up to help her continue her search, or send her to bed – depending on which parent it was.

"And then your brilliant sister chucked the Isolus pod straight into the Olympic Torch, saving my hide yet again."

Rose sat straight up and stared wide eyed at a dark outline of someone leaning against the doorframe, causal as you please. His shadowed silhouette was only broken by the light from the hall shining on his red trainers.

The Doctor stepped into the room, stars from the lantern dancing across his blue suit. "Because if there is one thing in this whole universe that I can count on, it's that Rose Tyler will never give up."


	39. Chapter 39

They just stood there, looking at each other; and it was beginning to get awkward. The Doctor was blocking the door, rubbing the back of his neck and looking as sheepish as Rose had ever seen him. She had slid carefully out of Tony's bed and now had no idea what to do. She wanted to run right up to him and…slap him…hug him…scream at him…kiss him? _Maybe_, she thought to herself, _I'll run to him and do whatever comes first._

"I'd go with the latter, if I were you," he said, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Mind you, I might just be saying that for my own benefit." When she gave him a questioning look, he added, "Still a little linked…telepathically, I mean." He tapped his temple. "Well, I say linked…"

"Kitchen. Now," she told him.

He cleared his throat. "Right," he agreed and turned on his heel as she followed.

The Doctor leaned against the kitchen counter and when Rose came closer to him, he raised his eyebrow and smirked at her as she stared intently at his face.

"I'm not a Slitheen," he teased and opened his arms for a hug.

She stepped back, still scrutinizing him. "That's not the alien that I'm worried about impersonatin' you."

"Ah, the Na'vorotti," he said, pursing his lips together and nodding. "I'm not that either. Half human Doctor, reporting for debriefing. Though, there is something that you've missed. My own fault, probably had the perception filter turned on a bit too high. Or maybe I'm just that captivating… either way…" he jerked his head in the direction of the open front door, "you might want to take a look outside."

Rose glanced through the living room and out the front door to see a blue police box sitting in the grass, just off the porch. Her breath caught in her throat as she took a couple more steps forwards, not quite believing what she was seeing. Suddenly, she whirled around and faced the Doctor with a stunned look on her face.

"That's…that's…" was all she managed to say.

"The TARDIS," the Doctor finished for her, adjusting his tie with a smug look on his face and bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. "How's that for an entrance, eh?" When she still didn't respond, he furrowed his brow, but continued. "We could finish this conversation aboard, you know. I can explain everything in the new console room. Oh, Rose, it's gorgeous; you should see it. C'mon."

Rose could tell that he was bursting at the seams with carefully contained enthusiasm at the prospect of showing her the interior of his ship, but she just didn't trust it. It was all too perfect. The Doctor shows up, unharmed, with a brand new, functioning TARDIS? She wasn't born yesterday. There was something amiss here.

"I'm fine here, thanks," she said.

"Wot?" he asked incredulously, obviously taken aback. "Rose, it's the TARDIS. Dontcha want to see?" Then he paused and sucked a breath in through his teeth, absentmindedly scratching his chin. "I do suppose that it is just a bit too perfect, isn't it? A little too suspect. You're right to be suspicious. Why wouldn't you be? Not exactly the homecoming I was expecting, but still…can't blame you."

"Can you stop doing that?" she asked, shaking her head as if to shake him right out of it.

"Reading your thoughts, you mean?"

She nodded. "It's weird. How am I s'posed to know if you're you or not when you can do that?"

"Here, sit down," the Doctor told her, gesturing to a chair at the kitchen table. When he came closer and tried to put his fingers to her temples, she flinched. "I need to break the link, Rose. Thought it was broken before, actually. But when I opened the pod that you were in back in 1974, I found that I couldn't grasp it because of whatever gas they had used to knock you out. So I kept the link intact. Became useful, that link." He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "I'll explain all that in a moment. For now, I just need you to relax and clear your mind…"

As skeptical as she was, Rose was also curious. What if this really was the Doctor? She didn't feel odd and scared like she did before when the Na'vorotti had been in her head. But she couldn't shake the feeling that this was just too good to be true.

She closed her eyes and began to feel warm all over. His fingers pressed to the sides of her head felt like they were the only things keeping her grounded. And then she saw images in her head; images of them running from a child in a gas mask. She saw dust on the ground at the Game Station and the Doctor running his fingers through it. He was so angry; so heartbroken at the thought of her death. And then she witnessed herself step out of the TARDIS; her eyes were glowing with an otherworldly light. The Doctor was scared. He didn't know if he could save her. Then they were running from a werewolf and the Doctor was holding her hand. She was bombarded with those images – him holding her hand as they ran, so many times. All the danger surrounding them and the one constant in all of it was the Doctor's thought as they ran that he never wanted it to end; he never wanted to let go of her hand. He didn't just need any hand to hold – he needed hers.

Then the images stopped and she was left with her own thoughts. She opened her eyes to see the Doctor kneeling in front of her, his face scrunched up in concentration. He looked so gravely serious that Rose actually found it comical. She bit her lip to stifle her laughter. It really was him.

"Doctor," she said, breaking his concentration. He opened his eyes and she smiled at him. "Hello."

"Hi," he said, grinning back at her before she flung herself off the chair at him and hugged him for all she was worth. "Ah, that's more like it!" he exclaimed, pulling both of them to their feet.

"Hold on," she said, backing away from him and standing with her hands on her hips. She pointed at him accusingly. "You sent me away – again. And how did you get back here…with a workin' TARDIS? What happened?"

"I was about to explain all of that," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Are you ready to listen?"

"I'm all ears," Rose said, crossing her arms in front of her.

"Funny you should say that," the Doctor said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Did you know that the people on Upsyllion actually have six ears? That's the planet that August and Emily were from, by the way…"

Rose sighed and narrowed her eyes at him. "Skip to the important bits…"

"Right. Uh, important… Well, that mental link that we had earlier was very important; brilliant idea on my part, in fact. The Na'vorotti attacked me when I dove into the lake…"

"Which is what I was afraid of," Rose reminded him, reclaiming her chair at the table and continuing to glare at him.

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that… Anyway, the TARDIS coral, reacting on instinct and not knowing what I needed her to do, tried to bounce me in time away from it. But since I was still linked to your mind, she couldn't pull me very far. I ended up only a few hours ahead in the same day and coughing out lake water on the pier." He started pacing and making enthusiastic gestures with his hands. "Fought the Na'vorotti by conjuring up my own hallucinations so that the TARDIS coral would trap it…August Harrison – who is actually called 'Greyon,' by the way – found me and took me back to their ship where you, Philip, and William were. I figured out what planet Greyon and Emily were from and remembered how the war on that planet ended back in our original universe… yada, yada, yada… Convinced Greyon to let you all go if I helped him end the war… blah, blah, blah… You sure you want to hear all this?"

"The sooner you tell me the whole story, the sooner I can just be happy that you're home and snog you senseless. Sound good, yeah?" Rose asked him, smiling up at him with her tongue between her teeth.

"Alright then," the Doctor said, shooting her a brilliant grin in return and taking a deep breath, "set your watch, Rose Tyler because this will be the fastest bedtime story you've ever heard." He paused and cracked his knuckles theatrically. "Greyon was using a device to trap the Na'vorotti that they found aboard the Skith ship with the creature. It wouldn't work anymore because the Na'vorotti had gotten too strong. But the core of this device was made out of dwarf-star alloy and I thought that if I could get my hands on loads of these energy emitter devices and fuse all the cores, then I could trap the Na'vorotti inside that and save the TARDIS coral. So I needed to go with Greyon – not only to end the war to make sure that he released all of you, but also so that I could extract the Na'vorotti from the coral.

"Greyon and I found the sister planet to Upsyllion that ended the war back in our original universe. We then went to Upsyllion and he became a hero. There was a big celebration in his honor that I didn't attend because I was too busy sonicing dwarf-star alloy and making a permanent prison for the Na'vorotti; but I assume there were cake, and balloons, and other festive things." The Doctor took another breath and continued, "When I telepathically manipulated the TARDIS coral into ejecting the Na'vorotti into the prison that I constructed, I also used the sonic screwdriver as a sort of dynatrope to steal the information and energy that the Na'vorotti had stored to repair the TARDIS coral. I figured it was only fair since the Na'vorotti had stolen all that from us. This energy I then used to accelerate the growth of the TARDIS coral and here I am. That's the cliff notes version, anyway. Whaddya think?"

Rose shook her head, trying to process all of his ramblings. "So why did you need to send me away with the Vortex Manipulator?" she asked. "Why couldn't I go with you? And don't say that it's because it wasn't safe."

"Ah, and there's that," he said, tugging on his ear. "I found the Vortex Manipulator and it could only make one trip for one person. I had to make sure that you would be able to go home. Rose, I didn't want you stuck there. If my idea didn't work…"

"But I always go with you," she protested. "No matter what – you always take me with you."

"And we always have a way out," he corrected her. "I didn't have a way out this time, did I? I was betting it all on chance."

"All the more reason that I should've gone with you," Rose told him. "You didn't know if you were gonna come back. What was I s'posed to do if you never came back?"

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "I also needed you here."

"Sorry, what?" she asked.

The Doctor looked up at her cautiously. "I needed you here. We were still telepathically linked and that's the only reason that I was able to come back. The TARDIS, while impressive and coming along at an impossible rate, is still not fully functioning. She still needs a bit more TLC and it's going to take a while before she's capable of travel. Traveling through time, yes – but not space. At least, not yet. Needs some work to the spatial geometer. She was risking too much by even doing that before; one more jump could permanently stunt her growth and cause internal damage that even I couldn't repair, though. There are things that I need to be able to finish her; things that I couldn't find easily. But I got as much done as I possibly could, mind you. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to replicate an Eye of Harmony for a Type 40 TARDIS? Almost impossible, Rose. Took me ages.

"I had to accelerate the growth of the architectural reconfiguration system before I could do anything, and that was no easy feat. But without that, no other components could have been made. Oh, that's a wonderful piece of equipment – a machine that makes machines. Truly unique. Then came the time vector generator, interactive gyro conductor scope…I had to build a comparator…from scratch! I bargained away my left sock for magnetite to get the klister valve to work. No idea what that alien wanted with my left sock…"

"Doctor," Rose hissed, pushing the heels of her hands against her forehead.

He stopped pacing in front of her and looked abashed. "Babbling?" he asked.

Rose nodded. "Babbling," she agreed.

"Right," he cleared his throat. "Anyway, since I was still telepathically linked to your mind, I was able to get the TARDIS to lock onto you through me." He smiled knowingly at her. "She wasn't very happy that you were so far away. I was counting on that. But you being here and not giving up on me is what really did it, Rose. That one little ray of hope – it crossed time and space so that I could follow it home. I knew that you wouldn't give up, and I was right. Your mind was the beacon."

Rose let out the breath that she had been holding. It was a lot of information to take in. "So you were only able to get here in the TARDIS because I was here?"

"Yep!" he exclaimed, trying to be quiet in the silent cabin. "Now do you see?"

"I s'pose," she admitted.

"Do I get a kiss now?" he asked, flashing her a cocky, full-of-himself grin. "Or do you wanna come see the TARDIS?" He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the chair. "We could kiss in the TARDIS… wouldn't that be brilliant? Allons-y! The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS… K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" The Doctor dashed towards the door with a manic energy. "You're gonna love it, Rose! It's just the most beautiful TARDIS in creation… Well, she will be – once I'm done with her."

"I just have one more question," Rose said, pulling on his hand and stopping him from running right out the cabin door.

"Wot?" he asked, spinning to face her and rocking back on his heels anxiously.

"I've been here, waitin' for you, for over fourteen hours. You said that it took you ages, so I reckon it's been longer than five and a half hours for you, yeah? Just how long were you rebuilding the TARDIS on that planet? How long have you really been gone, Doctor?"

The Doctor sucked air through his teeth and scratched at the back of his head. His brown eyes were wide and he nervously looked around like a frightened animal. "Well…"


	40. Chapter 40

"Well…what?" Rose asked as the Doctor shifted uncomfortably and shoved his hands in his pockets. "How long?"

"Hard to be sure," he said, shrugging. "You see, once I had started the carving process…I'd say I was there a week, week and a half."

Rose nodded. "That's not so long."

"But after that…I kinda lost track. I know that it gets a little wobbly when I got the spatial geometer working. After that, I was able to travel in time so I took different components of the TARDIS, set them in safe places, and jumped forward to when they would be done growing and stabilizing…" he trailed off, lost in thought. "Dunno how long I was doing all that. Quite some time, actually, since the TARDIS could only take so much. Maybe…six…seven…"

"Weeks?" asked Rose.

"Ah, no. More like…months," he admitted. There was that sheepish half-smile again.

"Seven months?" Rose was flabbergasted. "You were gone for seven months workin' on the TARDIS?"

"Now, technically, I was only gone fourteen hours," he rationed with her.

"Not for you," she argued. "You've barely been in this universe a month and you just spent seven in space."

"But look, Rose," he said, sprinting out the door and standing on the porch. He waved his hand in an expansive gesture. "Brand new TARDIS! See, she's all shiny!"

"I can't believe you," Rose said, following him out of the cabin.

"I know," the Doctor agreed. Then he snapped his fingers and the doors to the TARDIS flew open, revealing the inside. Despite her frustration, Rose's heart skipped a beat and she marveled at it in spite of herself. "I can't believe how brilliant I am either."

"Oh my God," Rose gasped, coming down the steps of the porch to peer inside. The Doctor lightly put his hands on her waist and steered her through the TARDIS doors and up the metal grating.

It looked…almost exactly the same as the original TARDIS. But the Doctor was right; she was shiny. Everything was brand new and polished, sparkling even. Rose wandered around the console room in astonishment. The walls still had an orange tint to them, but they were brighter now, more metallic. They seemed to glow, sometimes shimmering gold in the blue light that reflected from the console. Parts of the coral still reached up to the ceiling, towering above her.

She looked over the console and held back giddy laughter at the jumble of cords and pieces of equipment scattered about. It was just so…him; all of it. It wasn't just the Doctor's TARDIS…it was her Doctor's TARDIS – made especially for him.

The Doctor came up behind her and whispered in her ear, "Can't you feel it, Rose? We're home."

She spun around to say something to him. She wanted to tell him how utterly fantastic it all was. But before she could get a word out, the Doctor took advantage of their proximity, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled her closer. His lips were pressed against hers before she had a chance to register what he was doing. Not that she minded, actually. In fact, Rose grabbed his lapels and held him against her. She planned on showing him just how glad she was that he was home. _They_ were home.

But she was still reeling from all that time that he had spent away from her, so she gathered her thoughts (as difficult as that was with the Doctor gently stroking her cheek with his thumb as he kissed her) and she pulled back from him. He actually groaned in disappointment at the loss of her lips, but relented and leaned his forehead against hers. They were both breathless and flushed. Rose took a moment to be thankful that there was nothing to save the world from for now as she was pretty sure the whole of creation could go up in flames and they wouldn't even notice.

"You can't distract me with a shiny TARDIS and kisses, Doctor. You were still gone for seven months," she reminded him.

"Yeah, seven long months," he murmured. "And I missed you; so can we please resume the kissing now."

"So you reckon you're gonna get a free pass on this one because you came back with a TARDIS, yeah?" she asked.

"Well, I can promise you that I will never disappear for seven months – or fourteen hours – to build a TARDIS ever again. Because if I have to come back with a TARDIS every time I muck things up, we're going to need a huge carport."

Rose laughed and shook her head. "I'm still cross, you know."

"Oh yes; I gathered," the Doctor said, leaning down and meeting her lips with his until her head swam. "I'll just have to keep kissing you until you're not cross anymore," he said when he broke away. "Excellent diversion, really. Glad I came up with it. How long do you think that'll take?"

She shrugged and bit her lip. "Dunno," said Rose, threading her fingers through the hair on the back of his head. "Could take all day."

He chuckled. "Good thing we've got a time machine then. All day could take…Well, as long as we want, really."

"C'mon then, show me the rest," she said, backing away from him and darting over to the console.

The Doctor grinned at her, made a mad dash past her, and started flipping switches. "Now, we can't go anywhere just yet, but I can demonstrate some of the new features," he said excitedly.

"That's fine," said Rose, sitting back on the jump seat and watching him run around like a madman. "This is enough for now. Ya know, I never needed this."

He stopped, took a deep breath, and met her eyes with an inquisitive look. "But don't you miss it?" he asked.

"'Course I do. But I was happy either way, honestly. If it would've just been us, stuck, that would've been fine too."

"I was worried that…maybe…Well, I was afraid that you'd always be looking back – to the other dimension, I mean. You know, the way things were before… Grass is always greener on the other side, and all that," the Doctor half mumbled, staring down intently at the console, as if it had just become very interesting.

Rose hopped down from the jump seat and walked over to him. She slid her arms around his waist and pulled him in for a hug. "Doctor, we are on the other side now… and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the grass is greener over here."

The Doctor smirked playfully at her and winked. "Well then… you know, I did get the kitchen up and running. Whaddya say, Rose Tyler, fancy a morning cuppa in our new kitchen?"

"Oh, I missed havin' tea in the TARDIS," she enthused.

"I missed having tea with you in the TARDIS," the Doctor told her, bumping into her shoulder as they walked out of the console room.

She stopped and grabbed his hand. "Hey," she said, jerking him to her. "I love you."

"I lo…" before he could finish that sentence, Rose cut him off with another kiss, pushing him against the wall passionately, determined to give him the snog of his life. When she backed away, she almost giggled at the dazed look on his face and his slack jaw as he could only blink at her in surprise.

"Race ya," she said, smiling at him with her tongue between her teeth before taking off down the hallway.

"Oi, that's not fair," she heard him holler after her. "I've only got one heart now. No telling how fragile this weak human muscle is. It could give out at any moment if you kiss me like that. Rose, you don't even know where the kitchen is! Rose!"

"C'mon, Doctor," she yelled back. "You know how to run, dontcha?"

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**_A big, big thank you to everyone who read, followed, and reviewed! I hope you liked the story as much as I liked writing it. I'm toying with the idea of doing another one. Their story just seems so unfinished to me... I don't know. We'll see. Maybe if I get any requests for one. I just keep thinking that now that they have a proper TARDIS, there's all sorts of trouble they can get into. Anyway, thanks again - from the bottom of my single Whovian heart. And here's to the anniversary - who else is so excited that they can't think about anything else? Can't wait to see my favorite Doctor in the TARDIS again. I adore Matt Smith, but David Tennant will always be my Doctor._**


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